November is a time of transition in the garden. Leaves have been shed, spent plants are breaking down, and conifers and other evergreens come to the forefront. There have been comings and goings in the bird world as well. This month we focus on birds and the plants that support them, with a bonus article on an enchanting garden. Enjoy!

It's easy to see the allure of invasive Asian Honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii), with its beautiful, rhodoxanthin-containing berries.

photo by E Barth-Elias

Introducing beautiful, non-native plants to the landscape can have unintended consequences. Cedar waxwings, birds who dine for the most part on small fruits and berries, offer a case in point. Crabapple, mulberry, winterberry, elderberry and other plants provide cedar waxwings a rich, sustaining diet. In many areas that diet has been supplanted by the orange and red berries of invasive honeysuckles (Lonicera spp.). Exotic honeysuckles, native to Russia and Asia, were introduced to the US in the mid 1800s as landscape ornamentals. They were widely planted as animal food and for erosion control, and soon escaped into woods, meadows, and other wild areas.

Today they are widely dispersed and outcompete many native plants. Loaded with carbohydrates, but deficient in fat and nutrients, the honeysuckle berries are a bird’s sugary snack or junk food.  They can provide short-term energy in a pinch, but not the nutrients required for optimum, long-term health.

The cedar waxwing’s energy and food stores aren’t all that are affected by a honeysuckle diet. In the 1960s birdwatchers began noticing that the cedar waxwings’ normally yellow tail tips were turning orange. Researchers determined this to be the result of the ingestion of rhodoxanthin, the red pigment in invasive honeysuckle berries. Scientists have also determined that anomalous red coloring found on Baltimore orioles, yellow breasted chats, and northern flickers is due to the ingestion of non-native honeysuckle berries. 

Cardinals illustrate how this change in outward appearance can affect the long-term health of bird species. Vivid plumage on cardinals signals fitness, indicating to females that a male is a prime mating candidate. In this way, the strongest, best specimens carry the gene pool to future generations. Cardinals that consume a diet of rhodoxanthin-rich berries have brilliant plumage, and give a false fitness signal. When chosen by females, less viable progeny result.

You are what you eat – literally – in the bird world. Invasive plants are more than a nuisance. Look Around!

K Edgington

Winterberry holly berries (Ilex verticillata) framed by a winter sky.

photo by E Barth-Elias

As the days get shorter and colder and the gardens wrap up for yet another season, we tend to look for that pop of color in the darkening landscape. The winterberry holly is just the showoff we need as its bright red berries come into view. Winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata), unlike other hollies, is deciduous, not evergreen, dropping its leaves in the fall to expose only beautiful berries on long graceful branches. It’s heaven for those who enjoy holiday greenery in all its incarnations, from patio pots to centerpieces to wreaths.

Winterberry holly is a woody, deciduous tree or shrub that is native to North America. Also known as black alder and common winterberry, it is slow-growing but will eventually reach 5-15 feet tall. It likes acidic soil and moisture, but tolerates a variety of sun exposures, and with more sun comes more berries.

Being dioecious (having male and female reproductive organs on separate plants), a male pollinator plant is needed in the vicinity of female berry-producing plants to make the magic happen. Someone with a sense of humor named the popular male cultivars Jim Dandy, an early bloomer, and Southern Gentleman, a late bloomer. Read more about winterberry genders HERE. 

When one thinks about winterberry holly, winter obviously springs to mind, but good things happen before then. In the fall, the elliptical-shaped leaves turn from dark green to yellow and sometimes maroon, producing a lovely display. The berries that have formed under the leaves aren’t just for looks. Before and after the leaves fall, the berries serve as a food source for both local birds and those that are migrating. They are a staple of the cedar waxwing and the American robin, which stick around for the winter. The eastern bluebird and gray catbird may take advantage as they migrate to warmer locales. Migration times depend on food sources, so winterberry may keep birds around a little longer. Wood thrushes, woodpeckers, and northern mockingbirds, as well as small mammals, are also known to feed on it through the winter.

If you’d like this gem in your yard and you have the right soil (acidic and not too dry), you are almost there. Like any good marriage, you need the right mate. After you’ve chosen the female cultivar you like based on plant size, berry size and color (red, orange or gold), you must choose the specific male cultivar to match. One male plant can service 5-10 females but needs to be within 40-50 feet to succeed. The plants may be early or late blooming, so you need to find the male that meets your needs, one that blooms at exactly the same time. This means paying close attention to the tags at the garden center. Many newer varieties have similar sounding names. For example, Berry Poppins®, a petite variety (3-4 feet tall) with red berries, mates with Mr. Poppins®. This means paying close attention to the tags at the garden center. 

Consider mature size when planting and limit pruning to a light shaping in the spring or skip the haircut all together. Blooms form on old wood so pruning discourages flowers and limits berry formation. In wet sites, winterberry will produce suckers and form a dense thicket, so remove these for a tidier plant.

Winterberry holly deserves a space in many gardens and is surprisingly under-utilized. Its multi-season interest, easy care, and popularity with the birds are all bonuses. Just ask a cedar waxwing.

J Gramlich

Cardinals brighten up the winter landscape.

photo by E Barth-Elias

Bye bye birdies! As days grow shorter and temperatures drop, our fine but fickle friends depart for sunny skies, pickleball, and drinks with little umbrellas. Many feathered friends leave too, but we’re grateful for the ones that stay behind, bringing color and companionship to dreary winter days. We endure freezing temperatures, grey skies and chronic vitamin D deficiency for many reasons. But why do birds stay, and how do they survive?

Nowadays flying is no picnic for anybody, but a migratory flight is especially tough—even compared to a last row middle seat on JetBlue. Ornithologists estimate that only about 50% of migrating birds complete the journey. Migration takes lots of energy—birds can starve or be too weakened to survive. They generally don’t get lost, but urban lights and collisions with buildings are navigational threats.

In early October almost 1,000 birds collided into McCormick Place in Chicago, an unprecedented event caused by bad weather, huge migration numbers (an estimated one million birds that evening), and the brightly lit building. Lack of safe places to rest, and animal and human predators make an already risky passage worse.

Staying put may seem the safer bet, but finding food can be a challenge. Cheetos and M&Ms are plentiful here in January, flying insects and nectar are not. There is food around for winter birdy residents—just not the easy pickings of summer. Some species will store food. Before the ground freezes, thrushes and bluebirds dig insects out of the soil, and ground foragers like doves search under fallen leaves. Nuthatches and chickadees look for seeds and insects on plants; sparrows forage on the ground. Woodpeckers can peck insects and sap from tree bark, and jays find acorns, hazelnuts and hickory nuts. Cedar waxwings, eastern bluebirds and American robins replace summer insects with winter fruits and berries on trees and shrubs. A wintery landscape doesn’t stop a raptor from capturing its prey.

Another challenge birds who stay face—how to stay toasty in winter. Warm-blooded birds use some of the same tactics we use. Look at your puffy coat filled with feathers. Feathers serve many purposes—among them flight and waterproofing— and are great insulation. A sparrow has about 8,000 feathers, a Canada goose 22,000. Birds fluff those feathers, trapping pockets of air that are warmed by their body heat. The colder it is the more they fluff and the puffier they get. Your giant puffy coat has the same effect. Feathers must be clean and dry to fluff properly; birds keep them that way by preening several times daily. 

Birds put on weight to help with insulation and energy. (Ahem, me too.) Birds and humans shiver to stay warm, but birds do so by contracting opposite muscles, a technique that retains heat better than our shaking. Another strategy is huddling (some might say cuddling). Swallows and other small birds huddle together in evergreens or shrubs to stay warm, pulling in their heads and feet to minimize exposed areas. Woodpeckers, nuthatches and titmice huddle in cavities in trees or nest boxes, and bigger birds like crows also huddle to beat the chill. One non-feathered leg may be tucked up as birds stand one-legged (like sticking a hand in a coat pocket).

Birds have a few tricks we don’t. Some species, such as black-capped chickadees, can lower their body temperatures by up to 22 degrees Fahrenheit at night (regulated hypothermia). Gulls and waterfowl use a counter-current heat exchange system to keep blood circulating near important organs, permitting their legs to cool down without freezing, allowing them to stand on ice or swim in very cold water. Special scales on birdie feet and legs help minimize heat loss.

Sounds crazy, but some birds migrate to Ohio in winter—finding our climate balmy compared to where they come from, like the Arctic tundra. Ohio winter residents include Lapland longspurs, dark-eyed juncos, pine siskins, snow buntings and short-eared owls.

We’re grateful for our hardy feathered friends! If you’d like to show your appreciation, supplying food and water is a great idea. See HERE and HERE for some tips.

Resources for winter bird watching:

THE NATURE CONSERVANCY: Birdwatching in Ohio

CLEVELAND.COM: How to Identify 20 Winter Backyard Birds at Your Feeder

 

Consider celebrating the holidays by participating in the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, an event that began in 1900 to replace an annual hunt. Read about it HERE.

C Christian

There's a charming vignette at every turn in Kathi Jo's fairy garden.

photos by E Barth-Elias

Master Gardeners bring many talents to their volunteer jobs. Kathi Jo Lappin brought whimsy, creativity and a penchant for fairies with her. A visit to her garden brings a bit of spring to the coming winter weather.

It was love at first sight, no matter what the old house looked like. Summit County Master Gardener Kathi Jo Lappin and husband, Marty, only intended to go to a yard sale. They wound up buying that old house and barn and 3 acres of mostly untamed woods. They have spent most of the last 20-plus years turning it into a gardener’s heaven and a handy stopover for traveling fairies.

Kathi Jo had always liked what she would call weird things. She already had a collection of primitive tools and other large and small items of whimsy without any idea where to put them. Friends and relatives would stop by and say, “I think you need this.” Finally, after that fateful yard sale in 1999, she and Marty had the place where all those weird and wonderful things could happily repose.

It took about 9 years to restore the 1873 farmhouse and the pre-Civil War barn. During this time, they planted hostas — about 150 different varieties — along with ferns and hellebores. Moss, an inevitable byproduct of shade and moisture, drapes the sandstone blocks and boulders throughout the area. The Lappins then set their sights on the rear of the house.

An ornate iron fence, bisecting the backyard from the untamed forest farther on, was already in place when they bought the house. The previous owner admitted she had never visited that wild area. Using what they began to call the cemetery fence as a line of demarcation, they hacked away at brush until open space emerged. Then gardening began in earnest.

Marty had worked in heavy road construction and so came by untold tonnage of boulders and bricks that now create the pathways through the woods. Kathi Jo learned about fairy gardens. Add that to the years of odd accumulations and the rest, as they say, is history.

Fairies began to show up, either because she had found them or because friends and acquaintances knew a good home for these little creatures. Not only did she learn how to make cement fairy houses, but she also began to teach others how to build them. About 200 of her students have added to the region’s burgeoning fairy housing developments.

Entering fairyland through an 8-foot cast-iron portal scavenged from O’Neil’s Department Store, the woods fairly buzz with fairies at work or play. Little faces peek from holes in trees, turtles meet nose to nose atop a mushroom, huts made of sticks shelter tiny creatures as they emerge from a crevasse in a boulder. One scene, replete with tiny Airstream trailers, shows fairies gathered around a fire. Once a child became alarmed after seeing the scene without the fairies. Kathi Jo reassured the child that the fairies had already flown to Miami for the winter, but they would return on the wings of hummingbirds.

She estimates about 2000 people have visited her garden – among them members of the Midland Hosta Society and guests on the Summit County Tour of Gardens. (Her garden was featured twice.) People often find they must come back to this wee haven, there being so much to see.

As with many things, time has left its mark on this fairyland. Kathi Jo reports that many of the fairies have moved to Ellenton, Fla., occasionally joining the Barnum and Bailey circus. Still, magic grows where creativity meets Mother Nature. That surely has been the case with Kathi Jo and Marty Lappin who have built a paradise for wayfaring fairies. Kathy Jo and Marty are at that stage of their lives in which they are contemplating a move to a smaller, easier property. We wanted to bring you this glimpse of the wonderful gardens they have created and shared with countless garden enthusiasts, and send Kathy Jo and Marty our wishes for happy, magical trails ahead.  

S Vradenburg

Small pumpkins make colorful bird feeders.

photo by E Barth-Elias

The Halloween hoopla is history, and many of us are surrounded by a plethora of pumpkins. Yes – they make lovely Thanksgiving décor, but we’d like to suggest you make a pumpkin bird feeder or two to support our feathered friends. Thanks to Danae Wolfe*, Conservation Editor, for her photo inspiration for this project. Making these feeders is a snap.

INGREDIENTS/SUPPLIES:

Pumpkins or gourds, uncut. Small work well for hanging, large are better staged on a hard surface.

Bleach, 1 tablespoon

Birdseed

Twine (for hanging smaller pumpkins)

Sharp knife

Spray bottle

Scissors

1. Cut your pumpkin horizontally, leaving 1/2 to 2/3 as a base. 
2. Scoop out the seeds. (They make an excellent snack when roasted. See HERE.)
3. If hanging, make four slits at the top, going into the rind more than the flesh. These should be equidistant, and this is easily accomplished by holding your knife above to note the halves, making those cuts, and then turning to mark and cut the halves in the other direction.
4. Spray or dip the pumpkin into a dilute bleach mixture: 1 tablespoon bleach to 1 gallon of water.
5. Allow this bowl to dry in a cool, dry location for one to two days. Two days is optimal.
6. Cut 2 lengths of twine approximately 54” long for a 4” pumpkin – adjust accordingly. 
7. Put the lengths of twine together and fold in half. Hold the folded edge and knot 4-6” down to make a hanging loop.
8. Smooth the long strands and make a knot approximately 1-2” from the bottom, leaving the four ends loose.
9. Position your pumpkin with the bottom knot over the blossom end of the pumpkin. Pull each of the four strings above the knot so that they are inserted into your four slits.
10. Fill with seed and hang.

When making a full sized pumpkin feeder omit steps 6 through 9 and set the pumpkin feeder on a hard, raised surface. These feeders last several weeks before they’re ready for the compost pile.   

Be creative: Carve a large hole in the front of the pumpkin rather than removing the top to create a feeder with a roof. Add twig perches to the sides. 

Picture this: You in your favorite armchair, munching on roasted pumpkin seeds while watching the drama at the pumpkin feeder. A new November ritual.

*See Danae Wolfe’s beautiful photographs and learn about her photographic techniques on her website: https://www.chasingbugs.com/

K Edgington

November Checklist

• Continue to plant spring bulbs if the ground is not frozen.
• Mulch tea and floribunda roses (and other tender perennials) for winter protection; cut back to about two feet to prevent wind damage.
• Consider deer repellents and tree guards to prevent deer browsing damage. COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION: Preventing Deer Damage
• Clean and lubricate garden tools.
• Bring in garden hoses and ceramic pots.
• Take advantage of nice weather to pick weeds (hairy bittercress) and rake leaves on the lawn.

J Gramlich