Going Native in Your Garden
Scott Richardson ~ 2008-03-17
Laudholm Native Plant Sale pre-orders are now being accepted. Plan ahead and get your order in by May 2 (it’s pre-order only again this year). We’ve added an online form to make it easy.
Volunteers Pat Smith and Lynn Jourdan, who coordinate the sale, have put together a great list of 40 species native to Maine. Whether you have already started incorporating native plants into your landscape, here are Pat’s…
Top Ten Reasons to Garden with Maine Native Plants
10. There is a native plant for every growing condition in Maine.
9. Maine natives originated here or arrived here hundreds of years ago without human intervention. They are survivors.
8. Native plants provide food and shelter for indigenous animals.
7. By definition, native plants are not invasive.
6. Native plants thrive in Maine’s acid soil.
5. Maine natives have a natural resistance to pests and disease.
4. Growing zones are not an issue. Maine natives are hardy.
3. Native plants require less maintenance, easing the gardener’s chores.
2. Native plants make the gardener look good.
1. Native plants keep Maine looking like Maine; they preserve our historic landscape.
Wells Reserve participates at international estuaries conference
Scott Richardson ~ 2007-11-04
The Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation biennial conference is taking place this week and Wells Reserve scientists are well represented on the agenda. Reserve staff are participating in these presentations and posters:
- Fostering Coastal Stewardship: New Tools for Bridging the Science to Management Divide
- Indicators of Fringing Salt Marsh Ecological Function that are Responsive to Shoreline Development Pressures
- Synthesis of SWMP Data for ASSETS Eutrophication Assessment of the North Atlantic Region NERR Systems
- Response of the American Eel to Saltmarsh Restoration and Its Role in Trophic Dynamics
- Nekton Response to Hydrologic Restoration of New England Salt Marsh-Estuarine Ecosystems
- Developing a Nekton Index of Ecological State for Gulf of Maine Fringing Tidal Marsh
Who’s representing Wells Reserve in Providence, Rhode Island? Michele Dionne, Jeremy Miller, Andrea Leonard, Cayce Dalton, and several collaborators from partner institutions.
Busy as a Beaver
Sue Bickford ~ 2007-08-20
On a recent kayak trip down a narrow winding river, a beaver and I passed closely by, I was on a leisurely paddle and it was on a mission. I think leisure is a foreign concept to this creature. Thus the adage: Busy as a beaver.
We as humans seem to have developed a love/hate relationship with this industrious large rodent. It is very much like us in the fact that it is skillful at manipulating its environment to suit its own needs. The Native Americans thought the similarity was so great that they named the beaver “the little people”. Food and security are what it works long hours to achieve.
Being vegetarians, beaver (Castor Canadensis) prefer a large flat area where there are plenty of desirable woody plants that when flooded would be readily available by water. This reduces their exposure to predators. They are incredible engineers usually preferring to build a dam where there is already a constriction in the flow of water such as a narrowing of a stream or a culvert. This gets the maximum effect for the least amount of effort.
Their lodges are built either free standing if the pond is large enough or built into the side of a bank. These have at least two underwater entrances, a ventilated roof and mud insulated walls. All very cozy even in the deepest of winter and all very secure.
These large brown bulldozers (some reaching 100 pounds) are built to work. Their large webbed hind feet paddle them effortlessly through the water, the small front feet are very nimble. The chisel-like incisors continue to grow and self sharpen through out the beaver’s life. Their pelts have short hairs for warmth and long silky hairs for waterproofing, a coat so fine and desirable that they were almost hunted to extinction because of it.
Beaver Hat Image from www.collectionscanada.ca
Although a bit near sighted, this is made up for by having a highly developed sense of hearing and smell. They warn other beaver of danger by slapping their wide flat tail on the surface of the water and diving. This tail is also used as a rudder when swimming, to support them when standing and to store fat for use in the winter. Contrary to popular belief though, they do not use their tail to carry mud or slap it in place.
Beaver have a close knit family structure. Adult pairs mate for life and offspring stay with the family for two years, helping to raise the current year’s kits. A colony usually contains six or seven beaver. After two years, the young beaver leave to establish their own colony. This is quite difficult at times. Non-family beaver are not tolerated at another beaver’s pond and the travel over land and across roads is very dangerous.
Our contention with these wonderful creatures comes about when their manipulation of the natural environment starts to conflict with our own manipulation of the environment. Flooded backyards, blocked culverts, flooded roads, eroded banks, costly and continuous repairs results. Thus the struggle continues. But beaver ponds support a vast array of other species and are critical habitat for almost half our endangered species. So it is in best interest of both us and our “little people” neighbors to find solutions around this dilemma. For more information on beaver and non-lethal ways to reduce beaver impacts visit Beaver Solutions.
Comments? [1]
Land conservationists benefit from Wells Reserve mapping
Scott Richardson ~ 2007-03-04
The Wells Reserve’s mapping and conservation work is at the heart of today’s Portland Press Herald story by Seth Harkness—Project aims to fill gap in conservation of land.
Harkness notes:
A defining feature of conservation efforts in southern Maine is that land trusts tend to arise out of emergencies. Typically they form in reaction to an event like the one that recently occurred in Hollis, where a prized piece of property is threatened with development and residents respond by trying to protect it. Most of the groups are small, volunteer organizations with strictly local missions.
What’s missing, Harkness learns from Reserve research director Michele Dionne, is “the broader vision needed to spot areas worthy of protection before they are threatened and to organize small-scale conservation efforts into large-scale protection of habitats and watersheds.”
That’s where the Reserve’s grant under the Maine Coast Protection Initiative comes in. Now Hollis, Dayton, and Waterboro citizens know one key place to ask for help as they look ahead to protecting parcels important to their communities.
Gulf of Maine Institute founder on CBS News
Scott Richardson ~ 2007-02-15
John Terry, who started up the Gulf of Maine Institute seven years ago, was featured recently on the CBS morning news. To see the archived video, click here.
Managing habitat for cottontails
Scott Richardson ~ 2006-12-13
In an effort to increase habitat for the New England cottontail rabbit, today the Reserve brought in a hydro-ax supplied by the USFWS Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.
The machine felled some 10 acres of young alder stands in one day, forcing the areas to an early stage of succession. As brush regenerates, cottontails and other early-succession species (American woodcock, for example) will have more living space.
The two primary areas affected were along the Muskie Trail and near the Skinner Mill.