Below are before and after views of our backyard from the fall of 2020 through the fall of 2022. It’s quite the transformation! This is the story of how we got there.
2020
It was love at first sight for me and this house when we first saw it in August in spite of its overly large footprint. We are working to increase the energy efficiency of the house by adding insulation, heat pumps and solar panels.
As nice as the house is, we found the yard and surrounding 2 acres sadly neglected. Black-dyed mulch smothered the front slope creating a sterile desert for plants and animals. Gravel filled the front and back foundation beds. The front plantings included the invasive plants Burning Bush and Japanese Barberry and many Chinese Arborvitae. Crab grass surrounded the small swimming pool in the back yard.
Fortunately a number of mature oaks, the species most depended on by migratory birds, survived the development of the site in the front and side yard. Two of them have survived at least 75 years. In our two spring seasons, these trees have attracted most of the migratory warblers, vireos and flycatchers on the property.
Building a garden is time-consuming, physical work. We couldn’t do it all ourselves. Luckily we found the very talented Andrew Johnson, whose company Peak Landscapes perfectly fit our needs, and he was totally excited about the project.
By Thanksgiving we had removed the invasive plants and black mulch, and installed a path to access the meadow in the lower part of the property.
That fall I used iNaturalist to do an inventory of all the plants on the site- an easy way to find out which plants are native, non-native or invasive and to learn the plants you have. Now I have a baseline I can compare to future years.
2021
My first love is birding and they were amazing that first winter. It was an “irruption” year, when northern species migrate south in great numbers in search of food. This only happens every few years, depending on the abundance of food in the Canadian forests. We had dozens of Common Redpolls everyday from January 2 through April 28. We also had expected birds like Pine Siskins, American Goldfinches, Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, White-breasted and Red-breasted Nuthatches. The feeder spectacle drew a very tame Barred Owl and Sharp-shinned Hawk. We’re still waiting for this to happen again.
Planting
Over the winter Andrew and I developed a planting plan for the back yard.
We chose the plants keeping in mind Professor Tallamy’s list of keystone plants, adapting the list to this Zone 5(a), elevation (1350 feet) and the other site conditions – very sunny, dry and sometimes extremely windy.
The plants arrived in late April. What a fun day!
Before planting, we had to remove all of the crabgrass and dig out 6 inches of gravel from the garden beds. This was hard, heavy work and we were grateful to have Andrew’s help prepping the site.
We framed the garden with the signature trees of the North Woods-Tamarack, Black and Red Spruce, Balsam Fir and River Birch. Each species has specialized relationships with native moths and caterpillars and provides food and cover. Birch is a host plant for the Luna moth, and I spotted its caterpillar on a birch in August (pictured at left). A week after planting we had 6 Evening Grosbeaks, a beautiful but elusive bird, land in our new Birch trees. Tamarack have stunning gold color in the fall and their seeds and cones are eaten by Red Crossbills. Chipping Sparrows nested in the Red Spruce only weeks after it was planted.
We planted four species of deciduous trees. American Hornbeam and Eastern Hophornbeam are larval host plants for Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and White Admiral (both of which we spotted the next summer) and their seeds and buds are eaten by songbirds, Ruffed Grouse and Wild Turkeys. Allegheny Serviceberry has beautiful spring flowers excellent for early season pollinators, and is host to White Admiral and Viceroy butterflies. Black Tupelo, stunning in its salmon-pink fall foliage, has berries for songbirds and is host to the Azalea Sphinx.
We also planted shrubs – North Country Blueberry, Low Mound Chokecherry, Jim Dandy Winterberry Ruby Spice Clethra, Northern Bayberry and Sheep Laurel, which I had admired birding at Church Pond Bog. Perennials and grasses- Butterfly Milkweed, New England Aster, Black-eyed Susan, Purple Coneflowers, Thin-leaf Sunflowers, Blazing Star, Liatris and Prairie Dropseed filled in the garden.
In addition to new plantings, we installed steppingstone pavers and a small patio with the help of the very talented Chris Brown of Brown Masonry.
The back yard is basically a mound on a hill the developer carved out of the site. A steep slope borders the back of the yard and at the bottom a meadow covers our leach field. The previous owner mowed the field in summer so it was hard to know what grew there, and Andrew and I were eager to see what plants were growing there. Luckily it is healthy mix of goldenrod, asters, Sweet Fern, milkweed, blackberries, raspberries and Evening Primrose. Fortunately only two invasives – Multi-flora Rose and Black Locust (one of the rare native plants that is considered invasive) were present but manageable. Once the meadow grew in over the summer, it was abuzz with pollinators.
Along the path to the lower part of the property we planted small trees – White and Bur Oaks, Sugar Maple, Shagbark Hickory and Balsam Fir. We also planted a few Wild Raisin shrubs, Witherod viburnum, which is widespread in the nearby Pondicherry National Wildlife Refuge (pictured below), creating a gorgeous bright red thicket in the fall with berries loved by Ruffled Grouse and Purple Finch. We wrapped the bark of the small trees in the fall to protect it from winter voles and mice. We also staked the trees and wound fishing line around the stakes to keep deer away. So far so good. Our hope is that the young trees and shrubs will eventually grow to frame the path and create another layer of wildlife habitat.
The front slope is our problem area. We planted Low Bush blueberries and seeded it with a wildflower mix, but the oaks keep it shady and the soil is poor.
It seemed like no rain fell during the spring and summer of 2021. As new plants, everything had to be watered everyday. I was very happy to see all the plants made it through to the next season.
The foliage was spectacular in 2021. Our Black Tupelo’s salmon-pink was a show-stopper, as was the glittering gold of the Tamarack.
By the first frost of our first full year, we had almost completed the native plant garden in the back. In the front we planted four Birch trees, a couple of Clethra and a Sheep Laurel, but it was still pretty bare. I was sad to put the garden to bed for the winter, but was so excited to continue the project in spring.
2022
Spring takes its time coming up here. Migratory birds following insects begin to arrive as the temperatures warm in April with mid-May being the peak time. A tired looking Ruby-throated Hummingbird arrived at our feeder on May 5. Two days later one performed its elaborate display, making a looping, U-shaped dive starting as high as 50 feet above the female. This behavior goes on throughout May. This was likely successful, as we had plenty of newly fledged hummingbirds at our feeders later that summer. We love watching the hummingbirds zoom around the feeders, but they also love any plant with red or purple flowers. We will be planting the native Trumpet Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, next spring to attract them.
May 20 was a big day, with 9 species of warblers mainly in the oak trees, including the hard to see Tennessee, Bay-breasted, and Blackpolls. We saw or heard Black and Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Indigo Bunting, Red-eyed Vireos, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Wood, Hermit and Swainson’s Thrushes in the yard over the next few days. I am awed by the arrival of these birds, most of them having flown thousands of miles through South and Central America, across the Gulf of Mexico and up the East Coast to breed in our forests.
Attracting birds without using feeders is a major reason for planting native species. Seed feeders come down here in the North Country when Black Bears emerge from their dens.
We unfortunately attracted one to our compost in late May. Won’t make that mistake again!
An invasion of Spongy Moths, Lymantria dispar, formerly known as as Gypsy Moths, was a horrible, even disgusting, problem in the Valley in 2021, and worse in 2022. An invasive, non-native insect, defoliated entire stands of mature trees, particularly oaks. Mature trees can withstand the assault, but Andrew cautioned us that our young trees could be killed by the defoliation. We caught it when the caterpillars were small and carefully sprayed the new trees with an organic spray- Spinosad -which worked. The leaves regrew to some extent as the summer progressed. We are hopeful the moth’s current cycle is coming to an end.
We tackled the front beds this spring. Again we had to dig out inches of gravel, and some pavers from the front beds, before we could plant.
We chose some showier native perennials with some non-natives mixed in for the front beds- False Indigo, Lupine, Veronica, Eastern Bluestar, Eastern Columbine, along with Butterfly Milkweed and coneflowers. As a compromise with my partner who loves bold splashes of color which last all summer long, we planted showy annuals in window boxes.
Later in the summer, Andrew built boxes around unsightly concrete footings in the remaining backyard bed. Because that bed is under a roofed deck, it gets no rain water and needs drought tolerant plants. Andrew recommended herbs like Lavender and Thyme and the beautiful native grass Little Bluestem. The bed looks fantastic, smells amazing, and the bees love it.
The garden that summer was abuzz with bees, caterpillars, moths and butterflies. A Polyphemus moth was seen clinging to a screen. Birches are a host plant for that moth. Spicebush Swallowtail loved the Liatris and many Monarch caterpillars were spied on the Butterfly Milkweed. Later in the summer a number of Monarch butterflies checked out those plants for egg laying. A Great Spangled Fritillary loved the Lantana in the window boxes.
We put up 2 nest boxes, one for Black-capped Chickadees and a larger one to attract Northern Saw-whet Owls, arguably the cutest owls in North America, which are local breeders. We heard their high pitched too-too-too calls one night in March, and we know they breed in the area, so we put up a box. No luck just yet.
We seeded the front slope with a wildflower mix, but it was coming in very slowly and we began to talk to Andrew about what we could do to encourage more growth. Before we made any decisions the retaining wall collapsed. We knew it was only a matter of time but it was very loud and quite a shock. We were able to have it put back in place, but it’s a temporary fix. So that area will just have to wait until we find a solution to the wall problem.
The yard was gorgeous in fall. Although fall foliage in 2022 was more muted than 2021, the asters, blueberries, the red of the dogwood and serviceberry was stunning.
