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2/20/2024 0 Comments Using Natural Fertilizers Ecological Gardening Practices
Part 5 Using Natural Fertilizers ‘Adopt the pace of nature’ - Ralph Waldo Emerson Over the past month, we have covered several eco-gardening topics: discover your ecoregion, growing the right plants, keeping your soil covered, and attracting beneficial insects. But if you implement all these practices but are still using synthetic fertilizers, weed killers, and pest controls on your lawn and in your landscape, you are basically shooting yourself in the foot, negating all your positive efforts. Most synthetic products can damage the beneficial microorganisms in the soil. If your soil is healthy, its teaming with beneficials that are doing all the work that a fertilizer would do. They help convert nitrogen from the air into the soil making it a usable form of food to the plants. They help decompose dead plant matter into what the plants need. By continually using synthetic fertilizers on our lawns, edible gardens, and landscapes, we lose this important natural ecosystem, and the plants come to depend on us. This makes more work for us! Here are alternatives that mimic a natural ecosystem . . .
Other options:
As we make the switch from synthetic to natural, we must realize that we can’t rush Mother Nature. Natural pest solutions and fertilizers take time. They work, but they work on their own time table because they are establishing a healthy ecosystem. In a culture that wants to see results quickly (think same-day Amazon delivery), we need to ‘adopt the pace of nature’, slow down, and let nature do the work for us. If the thought of giving up a green, perfect lawn is something you just can't do cold turkey, then consider easing your way into a more natural approach. Here are three tips: 1. Switch to a natural lawn fertilizer like Milorganite. Apply it in the spring or ideally in the fall. 2. Fertilizer less frequently. 3. Reduce the size of your lawn and add native plants. This will reduce the amount of fertilizer and water inputs right away! That wraps up our eco-gardening series. If you want to learn more, mark your calendars for Saturday, March 23. Naturalist, Beth Goeppinger will be here presenting ‘Planning Your Native Landscape’. You can also check out the links below. LINKS: Homegrown National Parks Native Plant Finder Natural Fertilizers to Improve Garden Soil
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 It's "the little things that run the world”. - EO Wilson
Life as we know it depends on insects. They are the foundation of the food web in our ecosystems, particularly in our gardens. Insects pollinate flowers and maintain soil structure, but they also munch on our cabbage and attack other desirable plants in the garden and landscape. When we see damage done to our plants, our first instinct may be to apply whatever product will kill the insect quickly in order to save the plant. But nature already has a remedy. In a healthy ecosystem, damaging insects or “pests” are controlled by insect-eating birds, frogs, and other animals. There are also insects that eat other insects. We call these beneficial insects. Beneficials (the good bugs) help us in two ways: either they prey on other insects (the bad bugs) or they parasitize them by laying their eggs in or on them so their larvae can feed on and kill the pest. Ladybugs, lacewings, and predatory wasps are commonly-known beneficials. Instead of ordering them from a gardening catalog, we can attract these and other good bugs to our yards. Here are six ways:
Here’s one final thought. If a plant is struggling and continually susceptible to pests, perhaps it is the wrong plant for in that spot. It may not be suitable for that location or even your ecoregion. Maybe the best thing to do is remove it and replace it with a plant that is better suited to the site - like natives! Next week we will focus on using natural fertilizers. Also, mark your calendars for Saturday, March 23. Naturalist, Beth Goeppinger will be here at BGC presenting ‘Planning Your Native Landscape’. Until then, check out the links below to learn more. LINKS: What is Ecological Gardening? Homegrown National Parks Native Plant Finder  Soil is the foundation of all the plants you grow. If your soil is healthy, your plants are healthy. Why is that? Soil is alive with thousands of microorganisms that are working to keep nutrients available for your plants at the root level. If soil is left uncovered, those microorganisms can be exposed to sunlight, the top layer of soil can erode away, leaving plants at a disadvantage without a layer of insulation.
So we mulch. We have yards of hardwood mulch applied every year, and while this is a widely-accepted practice, there are better options that benefit the plants, the pollinators, and you. In ecological gardening, we are trying to mimic what nature does and restore wildlife habitats. In a natural ecosystem, you will rarely find exposed soil. Typically there is a layer of leaf litter that naturally falls, and within that layer are beneficial insects and their eggs that overwinter. ‘Leave the leaves’ has been a recent campaign by conservationists, and it makes sense. Not only do leaves help suppress weed seeds, but they nourish the soil as they break down and provide habitat for wildlife. Another option is a living mulch. Using plants as a mulch has many benefits - one of them is less weeding. When the right perennials are planted closely together, they will cover exposed soil and crowd out weeds. There are wonderful grouncovers that can be used as mulch as they weave in and around perennials and shrubs. In keeping with the last article ‘Grow the Right Plants’, we want to make thoughtful choices taking into consideration not only aesthetics, but also benefits to pollinators and plant communities. Introducing matrix plantings. A matrix is a design concept that originated in Germany following WWII. In it’s simplest form, a low-growing perennial is used as a groundcover, then taller perennials with similar cultural needs are planted among the groundcover to offer seasonal interest. Plants are carefully chosen based on their plant growth so they will knit together and form a cooperative ecosystem. Sedges (Carex) are commonly used as the matrix base layer. Other options include low-growing hardy geraniums (Geranium sanguineum), and lambs’ ear (Stachys byzantina) for sun, wild ginger (Asaram canadense) for shade. If you want to learn more about matrix planting design, click here. Learn more about sedges here. Living mulches can also be edible whether in an ornamental landscape or the vegetable garden. Wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) and herbs are good examples commonly used in permaculture. Learn more about permaculture here. The possibilities of living mulches are many and fun to explore. Next week we will focus on attracting beneficial insects. Also, watch for an opportunity to continue the conversation in person here at Burlington Garden Center coming soon. Until then, check out the links below to learn more. LINKS: What is Ecological Gardening Homegrown National Parks Native Plant Finder  The goal in gardening ecologically is to garden with plants best adapted to our locale and the wildlife that is here. So an ecological gardener will intentionally select plants that will support that wildlife. Natives are the best choice. They have grown and thrived in their ecoregion for centuries.
Right plant, right place. This is a long-held horticulture practice, and it is at the root of gardening ecologically successfully. The question we should ask is, what would thrive in the natural conditions of this place. Whether it’s wet or dry, sunny or shady, placing plants where they will thrive and require minimal care once established is what we are striving for. Why plant native? The National Wildlife Federation says it best: “Native plants help the environment the most when planted in places that match their growing requirements. They will thrive in the soils, moisture and weather of your region. That means less supplemental watering, which can be wasteful, and pest problems that require toxic chemicals. Native plants also assist in managing rain water runoff and maintain healthy soil as their root systems are deep and keep soil from being compacted.” You may already be growing some native perennials like coneflower, black-eyed susans, yarrow, or milkweed. But don’t limit your palette! There is a vast array of native plants that do well here in SE Wisconsin including trees and shrubs. Here is a list to get you started - just click on Native Plants and enter your zipcode. What if you don’t have a big yard? For small gardening spaces, including decks, patios, and balconies, there are herbaceous native plants that you can grow in container gardens. Check them out here. Keystone Plants There are native plants, and then there are really good native plants called keystone plants. Much research has been done studying which native plants support the most native pollinators in each ecoregion. These keystone plants are essential to our ecosystems. There are two types of keystone plants. Host plants support up to 90% of caterpillar species that in turn support our terrestrial birds enabling them to reproduce. The other group of keystone plants feed both general and specialist native bee populations. For example, the white oak and the black oak trees are the best native trees you could plant because they support the most diverse insect species - 436 different caterpillar species to be exact! Goldenrod (Solidago rigida) is one of the best keystone native perennials we can include in our landscapes because it supports 104 different caterpillar species as well as 43 specialist native bee species. Sunflowers also are at the top of the list supporting 50 specialist bee species! Even growing just one keystone plant can make a huge difference. Here’s a list to get you started. But remember that our ecoregion (Eastern Temperate Forest) covers many zones, so also refer to those specific to your zipcode. If you want to learn more about keystone native plants, listen to this podcast with Doug Tallamy. Next week we will focus on living mulches, and our series will continue each week addressing the following ecological practices: 3. Keep your soil covered 4. Attract beneficial insects 5. Use natural fertilizers Watch for an opportunity to continue the conversation in person here at Burlington Garden Center coming soon. Until then, check out the links below to learn more. LINKS: Eco Regions Map Homegrown National Parks Native Plant Finder  Ecological gardening is a new way to think about gardening. At its core, it strives to mimic and restore our local ecosystems. It’s the art of growing gardens that are suited to our area. It’s also a different way to choose plants that we grow. Instead of selecting plants that only please us, it’s intentionally seeking plants that will support wildlife that already lives in our ecosystem, sustaining it through the four seasons.
So what is an ecoregion? Simply put, an ecoregion is a large area of land containing distinct characteristics allowing natural communities and species to grow. According to the map above, we are in the Eastern Temperate Forest ecoregion which covers quite a large area of the country. Because this ecoregion covers so many states and different hardiness zones, it is broken down into smaller eco regions. Click here to see this map. We are in Level III ecoregion 53, and to be more specific, Level IV 53b. Totally confused? Keep reading. Why garden by ecoregion? Plants are not bound by state lines when it comes to their natural habitats. Using ecoregions as a guide, we can make smarter plant choices. Not only will these native plants have a better success rate, better plant health, and better performance, they will support our local wildlife. The goal in gardening ecologically is to garden with plants best adapted to our locale and the wildlife that is here. If you’d like to read more on this topic, here is an interesting blog post by Doug Tallamy. Next week we will focus on growing the right plants for our spaces, and our series will continue each week addressing the following ecological practices:
Watch for an opportunity to continue the conversation in person here at Burlington Garden Center coming soon. |
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