Screenshot 2022-11-20 12.09.45 PM
Dear there,
A few days ago, I witnessed something akin to magic. Visiting the area of North Alabama that was once prairie and contains limestone glades, I saw what happens to that place when you remove fast-growing Eastern red cedar trees and reintroduce fire. Seeds resting in the soil for decades begin to grow, and plants entirely adapted to their harsh environment in full sun and thin soil appear. Dozens and dozens of plants were popping up in spaces that had been covered in cedar until very recently.
The person showing me around the limestone glades was Kyle Lybarger, who is working hard to raise awareness about southeastern prairies and conserve as many acres as he can through his organization, Native Habitat Project.
When I was fretting about some vegetables that I had planted several years ago, a more experienced gardener made this seemingly obvious, yet useful observation: Plants want to grow.
The plants on the land Kyle manages illustrate this point. Dizzying diversity everywhere we turned and not a single plant introduced by people.

Journeywork is not trying to grow gardeners. We are trying to include planting in our idea of responsible citizenship, helping people to observe the growing conditions they have and reintroduce the native plants best adapted to those conditions.
And after that, noticing what happens next in your landscape is just plain fun. Where the reseeding happens. The new butterfly or moth. We can control what we put in our yards, but then we can't control what happens next, and there is a tremendous beauty in that. It's like magic.
A very pithy newsletter follows: keep reading for updates, upcoming events, and interviews with our membership partners at Good Host Plants and Edge of the Woods Nursery.
Glad to be thinking spring with you,
Paige
above: top center: hoary puccoon, left to right: tuberous stoneseed, Eastern shooting star, a patch of sunnybells coming up in a recently burned field
below: top left to right: violet woodsorrel, fire pink, Tennessee gladecress
bottom left to right: Nashville breadroot, limestone adder's-tongue, one limestone glade

Welcoming spring together

Rock harlequin, bushy bluestem, climbing hempvine, and wild yam are just a few of the interesting and unusual native species that Sam Makler described for us and announced will be available at Collins Nursery this season. Sam propagates all of the plants at the nursery from locally-collected seed.
Kristy Morley from Wissahickon Trails shared stories of the bees and butterflies she has observed and photographed and all that she has learned about what lives in a milkweed patch if you take the time to look.
Gathering attendees enjoyed both of our speakers and peppered them with questions. Many thanks to our speakers, to all those who came, to Weavers Way for their excellent breakfast donation, and to Backyard Beans for giving us wonderful coffee! We raised $420 for our outreach efforts.

Growing a riparian buffer
On March 9, our determined crew cut back multiflora rose and some bush honeysuckle along a residential bank of the Wissahickon Creek. We cut the plants down to the ground, but we did not remove the roots because we don't want to increase erosion. Many thanks to the removal team! Journeywork will be back on April 5 to plant buttonbush live stakes and April 12 to plant shrubs. Click here and here if you would like to help out!

Two seasons of Pollinator Palooza

Because Pollinator Palooza was so well received last fall, we are offering it again this spring for fall planting. Sign up from April 1-May 15, sheet mulch in the spring, and pick up your plants in September!
We need volunteers to help sort the plants for our spring pick-up. Please email me if you want to help.
  • 5/13 6:00-8:00
  • 5/14 2:00-4:00
  • 5/16 2:00-5:00

iNaturalist training on 4/17 and Bioblitz on 6/7

When you think of conservation, a camera may not be the first thing that comes to mind! However, your camera and the free iNaturalist app can contribute valuable data to global conservation efforts. Join Wissahickon Trails Senior Naturalist Kristy Morley to learn how to use iNaturalist and how it can help benefit wildlife in our area. We'll cover the basics of using the iNaturalist app and website as well as tips and tricks for taking photos for iNaturalist (with any camera). We'll also cover some local events that you can take part in with your new skills, including City Nature Challenge (in April) and Journeywork's Bioblitz on June 7 at Gwynedd Friends Meeting.
This training will be online on April 17 from 7:00-8:30 pm.

In just spring, when the world is mud luscious

There are many opportunities to get involved with Journeywork this spring! Order plants through Pollinator Palooza, volunteer to plant, help us manage one of last year's plantings, and the list goes on!
April
May
  • Saturday, May 10: Screening of Citizen George with tabling at Ambler Theater, 11:00 email me to volunteer /buy ticket here
  • Saturday, May 10: Towamencin EAC Environmental Fair during Towamencin Community Day, Fischer's Park, 12-4 email me to volunteer
  • Saturday, May 17: Pollinator Palooza plant pick-up, Gwynedd Friends Meeting, 9:00-11:30
  • Sunday, May 18: AWNF&GA plant sale at Twining Valley Park, Upper Dublin, 11:30-3:00
  • Sunday, May 18: plant in Dresher, 1:30-4:00
  • Tuesday, May 20: plant in Hatfield, 5:30-7
  • Saturday, May 24: plant in Blue Bell, 9-11:30
  • Wednesday, May 28: weed woodland garden at Gwynedd Friends School, 6:30-7:30
  • Saturday, May 31: plant in Lansdale, 2:00-4:00
  • Monday, June 16: meadow management at Plymouth Meeting Friends School, 7:00-8:00
June
  • Saturday, June 7: Bioblitz with Wissahickon Trails at Gwynedd Friends Meeting Burial Ground 9:00-12:00
  • Sunday, June 8: Weavers Way garden workshop tour at Hope Lodge, 1:00-3:00 register here
  • Monday, June 9: Journeywork plug sale at Gwynedd Friends Meeting, 6:00-7:30, **one free plant for members
  • Saturday, June 14: Bucks WNF&GA Designed for Nature Garden Tour buy ticket here
  • Friday, June 20: Summer Solstice lecture by Jenny Rose Carey, Gwynedd Friends Meeting, 7:00-8:30, *discount for members

Great tips from our membership partners
Journeywork members get a 10% discount from Good Host Plants and Edge of the Woods Nursery. I thought you would appreciate learning more about each nursery and recently asked each owner some questions about their work with plants.
Below are responses from John Janick, owner of Good Host Plants.
How did you get your start with native plants? In spring 2010, I was ready to tackle the landscaping for our home that we purchased two years prior. The front and back yards were mostly taken up by a carport, weedy remnants of a lawn, and overgrown shrubs. I planned on filling up our car with ornamentals from a big box store when I noticed in an online forum that Audubon At Home was offering yard audits in Mt. Airy. I signed up, and in a few weeks I was met by about six representatives who introduced me to the benefits of native plants, and provided me with a copy of Bringing Nature Home (by Doug Tallamy). I read it that weekend and found my passion.

Over the next two seasons, we ripped out the carport and I filled the space with native grasses, sedges, wildflowers, trees, and shrubs. I posted signage to let passersby know what was happening. Once my neighbors learned what I was doing, some of them asked me to help add pollinator gardens to their landscapes. Soon I found myself running back and forth to any nursery that grew native plants within a one hour drive, and I was maintaining about five yards at the time. In 2015 I was offered a space to set up a growing operation where I set up three hoop houses and established Good Host Plants.

How do you decide which plants to feature in your nursery? I try to select plants that offer the most benefit to wildlife, especially the number of pollinators that visit them when in bloom and the number of caterpillars that rely on the foliage for food. The vast majority of the plants I grow are native to the Mid-Atlantic, and I try to source plants from local ecoregions. I strive to keep a diverse selection of plants suited to all sorts of light and soil conditions with varying bloom times throughout the growing season. Since month-long droughts are becoming the norm in our area, I try to carry some of the best performing species for gardens that can't always rely on irrigation.

What is one lesson that you have learned from your experience growing native plants on your own property? Our first property was small, but I was interested in so many plants at the time that I tried to grow at least one of everything! I took tons of photos over the years, so I could go back and look at, say, June over three seasons and see how a particular space transformed, which plants thrived, and which ones didn't make it. Based on this, I was constantly transplanting things to more appropriate locations and coming up with plant combinations that worked well together. We moved in 2020 and I now have an acre to experiment with. If I'm offering a particular species for sale, you can find it growing somewhere on our property where I'm monitoring it. Just as important would be identifying the invasives on your property and knowing their preferences as well. They must be eliminated to have long-term success.

Can you share some of your favorite examples of the pollinators and other wildlife you have attracted to your yard by replacing your lawn with native plants? My favorite example was when I was just starting out at our previous property. Bringing Nature Home was filled with photos of lepidoptera, and the spicebush swallowtail caterpillar really caught my eye (pun intended) with its false eyespots adaptation. Spicebush swallowtail caterpillars rely on spicebush as a host plant, so that was the first shrub I planted that spring. Sure enough, I found spicebush swallowtail caterpillars feeding on it in late season. If you plant it, they will come! Another example would be mountain mints, Pycnanthemum sp.. It's incredible how many pollinators visit mountain mints in the summer, and if you have a vegetable garden they'll attract predatory wasps that will eliminate many of the crop pests that reduce your yields.

an interview with Louise Schaefer, co-owner
of Edge of the Woods Nursery, **where they host tours of their gardens every Tuesday morning at 10:00**
What led you and Sue to start a nursery exclusively for native plants? We worked at a non-profit that had an annual native plant sale and realized that people needed to be able to add native plants to their landscape at any time of year. When we started the nursery, there were very very few retail native plant nurseries.
What are a few of your favorite plants for full sun? For partial shade? For full sun, plants like Joe pye weed, coreopsis, and coneflower bring lots of color and activity to the garden. Between the birds, butterflies, and colorful blooms, there is always something! For part shade, the native pachysandra is outstanding. So different than the Japanese pachysandra that is ubiquitous. Slow to grow but worth the wait. Mottled foliage, scented flowers in early spring.

I use your website all the time for your plant information; it is such a terrific resource! How much are your plant descriptions based on research and how much on your personal experience? The plant descriptions are based on information from books as well as from our personal experience. We don't usually give information about a plant that we haven't personally grown, so I would say none of the descriptions are based only on "book learning." In the case where our experience differs from what might be in a reference, we will go with our experience. There aren't usually major differences.

What advice do you give to someone starting to add native plants to their yard? Don't get overwhelmed with too much information. Start with one plant or three, and see how they do. The plants will tell you everything you need to know. Expand slowly based on which plants are thriving. Make sure you select a plant that will match the site (soil moisture, sunlight). Plant a diversity of species so "all your eggs aren't in one basket," so to speak, and also to provide diversity in habitat.

and finally, oh, deer

Gregg Tepper, Senior Horticulturist at Laurel Hill, recently spoke to the Ecological Landscape Alliance about the deer repellants he finds most effective:
  • Deer Scram Professional--granular; composed of blood meal, garlic, red pepper, eggs
  • Plantskydd--granular and pre-mixed concentrate--also works for voles and rabbits--dried blood and vegetable oil, provokes fear response
  • Repels-All--lasts up to two months
  • DeerStopper II--nice mint and rosemary smell
  • Trico Pro--expensive, but effective against buck rub on tree trunks
If Journeywork inspires you to sheet mulch, start seeds, or plant some native plants in your yard, please send us a picture! Or a donation! Let's celebrate and support each other!

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P.O. Box 51, Gwynedd Valley, PA 19437