Autumn Notes from the Lions Bay Butterflyway Gardeners

By Val Morton, Butterflyway Ranger and Nature Lions Bay Vice President-Secretary

With native gardens, messy is best!

Winds, rain and cooler temperatures let us know that this growing season is winding down. Many of the native plants that we have been tending throughout the season are looking very bedraggled. The question is ‘What next?’ It is so tempting to chop all the messy stalks down and ‘tidy up’ the garden. Research tells us that the best way to support native biodiversity is to avoid this temptation.

Native plants, animals, fungi and soil bacteria are intricately connected and rely on each other to thrive. Leave the stalks over the winter. Seeds will feed the birds and also give rise to new plants in the spring. Many native flies and bees live in hollow plant stems over the winter. If we chop all the stems down and put them in the green waste, many insect larvae will end up in the compost heap instead of completing their life cycle in the stems. Leaves and twigs can also be used as mulch to cover parts of your garden over the winter and will decompose to add nutrients to the soil in the spring.

Bedraggled asters.

This time of year is also a great time to pull out some of those nasty invasive plants that are overrunning our native plants. In particular, Himalayan blackberry, English ivy, morning glory, lamium and periwinkle are really taking off in Lions Bay. If we all do a little bit, we can accomplish a lot! For example, a group of villagers met in early March before the nesting season and pulled out the ivy to the left of the stairs near the village office. In June that area was replanted with native plants. It does need to be watched as the ivy will regrow from underground roots. If anyone would like to take part in weeding that area, please contact me and I will coordinate a group weeding session. It can be fun to work in a group and there will likely be delicious scones available as an added incentive!

Members of the Butterflyway Project have been collecting native plants seeds over the summer and will happily pass some to any Lions Bay resident who wishes to try their hand at germinating native seeds. There is lots of excellent information online about germination methods for specific native plants.

If you would like some seeds, feel free to email Val Morton at val.morton@gmail.com. If you are looking for an easy to grow native ground cover, let me know and I can give you some native strawberry plants to start in your yard.

This is lamium, commonly known as ‘Yellow Archangel’. It is very difficult to get rid of, like all invasive plants.