(Images: Angie Erdrich)
My garden priorities are to provide insect habitat, to protect the lakes and to grow food. With that in mind, I appreciate this opportunity to share some garden successes and advice.
1. I love multipurpose plants. I grew Scarlet Runner and Chinese Purple Long beans from seed on a trellis and watched hummingbirds and monarchs sip nectar from the blossoms. One could grow them in containers on a patio and create a hummingbird feeder, privacy fence and stir-fry ingredient all in one.
2. I grow Cool Breeze cucumbers from seed and train them vertically. This year I produced enough to give away more than 100 pounds of cucumbers and 50-plus quarts of bread-and-butter pickles.
3. Does it make you sad to see Lake of the Isles topped with green scum? Want to prevent it? Install a rain garden. Algal blooms are caused by excess nutrients entering the lakes, especially phosphate-rich garden soil, lawn fertilizer and organic material. Minneapolis’s old-fashioned storm drains allow unfiltered rainwater to wash off streets directly into the lakes, carrying debris and pollution with it. Our entire boulevard is a rain garden, and we extended our downspouts about 20 feet away from our foundation into two more rain gardens. We get the joy of seeing butterflies and birds attracted to the deeply rooted native wildflowers.
4. The importance of growing food for caterpillars is well described in Doug Tallamy’s book “Nature’s Best Hope,” which spawned a national movement, Homegrown National Park. Growing native trees and plants is the way to help caterpillars, which become pollinators and also provide food for birds. Here is a fun way to help: Pick a sunny spot or an empty pot this November and plant dill seeds for the black swallowtail caterpillars to eat next May.
5. October is a great time to plant native seeds and transplant perennials. I am giving away a lot of seed heads that are easy to propagate this way: blanket flower, meadow blazing star (Liatris ligulistylis), goldenrod and spotted beebalm.
6. If you have a small strip of land in the alley that is weedy and ignored, consider planting native habitat. I am happy to supply seed heads of habitat-rich plants that could be filling those ignored alley spaces.
“Pick a sunny spot or an empty pot this November and plant dill seeds for the black swallowtail caterpillars to eat next May.”
7. A neighbor has found a native ground cover that might work for you: woodland strawberries. These cheerful plants are starting to take over her front yard from the bottom up, a welcome change from mowing her steep slope.
8. North Star cherry trees grow well here, and they make the best cherry pie filling.
9. Winter sowing is a super easy and economical way to grow native perennials or even annuals. I start plants outdoors in February in clear plastic storage tubs. I repurpose plastic cups and yogurt containers, set them in the tubs, add seeds and water and forget about them until May.
I hope you have enjoyed these gardening tips. Please contact me with questions or for free native seeds at Angie_sandeep@yahoo.com.
Angie Erdrich writes for the Hill & Lake Press. She lives in Kenwood.
