Township of Morris Environmental Commission

October 2022 Newsletter

Please Leave Some Leaves, Stems, and Sticks for Overwintering Insects

One of the most valuable things you can do to support biodiversity is to provide wildlife with vital winter cover in the form of plant material. While your yard may look “dead” in winter, it can sustain a host of creatures when you keep leaf piles, flower stalks, and other plant debris in place. 


Turn over a new leaf and try a kinder approach to landscaping this fall. Put away the pruners, leave the leaves, and let the insects do the work for the future success of their generations and your garden alike.

Leave some leaves for nesting

Leaves are not litter. Fallen leaves provide important winter habitat for bees, butterflies, and other insects. When we rake, shred, and discard the leaves in an effort to tidy the lawn, we inadvertently kill everything living in them. 


Other insects such as fireflies, ladybugs, beetles, and spiders also live and overwinter in leaf litter. These insects then feed our chipmunks, birds, turtles, and amphibians.


Instead treating leaves like curbside trash, try raking your leaves into garden beds, wood lots, or tidy piles in the corners of your yard. Allow the caterpillars to overwinter, and enjoy the beautiful moths and butterflies next summer.   


Another reason to leave the leaves is for the many benefits they provide to your landscape. Leaves provide valuable organic matter and build up healthy soil. Fallen leaves have the same weed suppression and moisture retention properties of shredded wood mulch—and they’re free!

Don't forget about stems and stalks

Many hollow or pithy plant stems and branches provide excellent places for cavity-nesting insects to call home.


Common occupants of dead stems and twigs include bees, cavity-nesting wasps, stem-boring moths, and even some spiders. In addition, many beneficial insects insert their eggs into the stems of wildflowers and grasses for safe keeping over the winter.

Please use the visual guide below to know when to cut back stems and stalks:

(Image provided by Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation)

Even fallen sticks and logs play a role

Constructing a brush pile is an effective way to provide habitat for a diversity of beneficial insects and other wildlife.


Brush piles provide hibernation sites for butterflies and moths, soil access for ground nesting bees, daytime shelter for fireflies, and food for a diversity of wood-eating beetles and other organisms that eventually break the piles down into valuable organic matter for your yard.


Larger animals also benefit from brush piles. Chickadees, warblers, and other songbirds enjoy the hiding spaces provided by the branches, and small mammals create warm burrows in the pile that later provide protected spaces for bumble bees to nest.


Log piles are renowned for their ability to shelter wildlife of all types, shapes and sizes. Piles of rotting logs provide a home throughout the year for an almost endless list of creatures including beetles and their larvae, spiders and worms, as well as animals higher up the food chain, especially newts and toads.  

“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.”

Leo Tolstoy

First Phase of Butterworth Pollinator Garden Complete

A group of volunteers met on a beautiful autumn day to prepare the site of the Butterworth Pollinator Garden.


Recycled cardboard was laid down and covered with several inches of natural mulch.


Our thanks to the Morris Township Parks & Recreation Dept. for donating and delivering three cubic yards of mulch.

Planting of the garden will begin in the spring of 2023. By then the roots of the grass and weeds under the cardboard and mulch will be dead. A stone path and permanent signage will be installed at the same time.


Additional thanks to the volunteers (from left to right in photo): Charlie Schachter (EC Member), Colin Gaynor (Neighborhood Garden Steward), Brian Morgan (EC Chairman), Stephanie Morgan (volunteer), and Hitesh Manglani (Neighborhood Garden Steward).

Environmental Commission Meets Public at Fall Festival

It was cool and drizzly on the day of the 2022 Morristown Fall Festival, but that didn't dampen the spirits of the Environmental Commission volunteers and our many visitors. 


We gave out native Black-Eyed Susan flower seeds, helped children plant acorns, and answered questions from everyone.


Pictured from left to right in the photo: Eric Rush (EC Assoc. Member), Leslie Jones-Wentz (EC Member), Donna Guariglia (Township Committee Member), Hart Coven (EC Assoc. Member), Brian Morgan (EC Chairman), and Charlie Schachter (EC Member).

Township Committee Member Cathy Wilson Wins Environmental Achievement Award 

The Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions (ANJEC) gave a 2022 Environmental Achievement award to Morris Township Committee member and Deputy Mayor Cathy Wilson.


We nominated Cathy for her unwavering support of the Environmental Commission and our initiatives. She has been the Liaison to the Environmental Commission since her election to the Township Committee in 2017. Congratulations, Cathy!

Native Plant of the Month: Wreath Goldenrod

It's easy to notice and appreciate Goldenrods at this time of year, when their bright yellow blossoms saturate the landscape. There are more than 125 species of Goldenrod native to the U.S. In a previous newsletter, we put the spotlight on Showy Goldenrod (Solidago speciosa), which prefers sun and grows up to five feet tall.


Now meet one of its cousins, Wreath Goldenrod (Solidago caesia), sometimes called Bluestem Goldenrod, which grows only 1-3 feet tall, blooms a few weeks later, and tolerates in shade. Both are magnets for all kinds of pollinators.

PHOTO CREDIT: CHARLIE SCHACHTER, MEMBER, ENVIRONMENTAL COMMISSION

Busting the allergy myth

Goldenrod gets the blame for itchy eyes and runny noses, but the culprit is actually ragweed. The two plants bloom at the same time. Goldenrod flowers contain nectar to attract pollinating insects, and the large, heavy pollen grains attach to the insect bodies. Ragweed flowers do not contain nectar, and the plants are dependent on the wind to transfer the small, lightweight pollen. A single ragweed plant is capable of producing over a billion pollen grains that can travel miles in the air. 

A few golden nuggets of lore about this native perennial:

  • Abundant Goldenrod is thought to indicate a hidden spring or hidden treasure
  • If Goldenrod starts growing near your home, you could be onto a winning streak
  • In many cultures, Goldenrod blooms are associated with prosperity and happiness

2022 Winter Farmers Market Coming Soon

In association with Grow It Green Morristown, the Environmental Commission of Morris Township is pleased to announce the return of the Winter Farmers Market at the Convent train stain parking lot.


Every other week, the EC will have a tabletop information display and give away wildflower seeds. Learn more here.

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