To a bird, the bumper sticker says it all: “If you’re not here in February, your opinion doesn’t count.”
The birds that are here in February get first dibs on nesting sites and territories, while to the rest of us lucky enough to hear it, their birdsong is beautiful and cheering. Cold as it has been, snowdrops and early crocus still push their way through hard-as-rock soil.
Deer like inedibles
The ground is littered with pieces of yew, rhododendron, and holly. Who did it? Deer did it. The holly is prickly; the yew and rhododendron are poisonous to ruminants. How can deer eat this stuff and, ripping and tearing, do so much damage? The short answer is, they are hungry and their digestive systems are equipped to handle it.
Internet reading provided answers to some of the questions.
In winter, the diet of white-tailed deer consists largely of woody twigs, branches, bark, and other fibrous fodder, such as pieces of our yew, rhododendron, and holly.
Their amazing rumens, the complex organs of digestive machinery deer and other ruminants, such as cows, sheep, and goats possess, are calibrated to handle such low-quality diets. The compartmented rumen holds and shifts the inedible fodder back and forth; it produces an array of microbes and unique digestive functions capable of turning its contents into usable nutrition.
If humans supply a well-meant banquet of nutritious, high-quality fodder, these rumen functions are interfered with and upended. Furthermore, all wildlife congregate at food sources and pass around any communicable pathogens they may be carrying, whether the chronic wasting disease of cervids or avian flu in poultry.
Feeding might save some ornamental plantings. However, in ecological terms, humans interfering with wildlife and its adaptations is bad news, for wildlife and often for us.
Tick life
Do cold weather and snow diminish incidence of tick life? So we hope, although in actuality, it is unlikely. The minute arachnids have evolved lives and life cycles that require very little, apart from some drops of blood. They know heat and carbon dioxide exhaled by their prey. They know up, such as crawling up a blade of beach grass or prey’s legs.
Ticks are heedless of water or oxygen, being capable of surviving lengthy periods under water or in test tubes with neither. They have a life cycle of egg, larva, nymph, and adult, which takes about two years to complete.
At the recent, well-attended Alpha-gal MD Panel held at the Agricultural Hall, the audience was all ears for what is currently known about the acquired allergy to mammalian foods, which is transmitted by lone star ticks.
It turns out to be quite a complex situation, even sometimes bizarre, such as when anaphylactic shock ensues upon encountering a mere whiff of barbecuing meat. There are no immediate cures in sight, although there is concerted research underway. Currently the Island is experiencing an epidemic of alpha-gal, or AG.
The adult lone star ticks emerge from winter dormancy usually around the end of March and are prevalent through June. Nymphs have two seasons of prevalence, May to July and August to September. Larval season (the horrifying “tick bombs”) is July to September. Whole-property spraying is not recommended: too many unknowns. Permethrin-treated clothing is, however, and one manufacturer has a discount code for Island purchasers. (I hope this is correct: Marthasv2024.)
Back fence lines
It takes very little to improve the survival chances for wildlife. According to Margaret Roach (awaytogarden.com), a suggestion for improving the habitat aspect of gardens, even in those with different design contexts, is to simply utilize inconspicuous back fence lines.
Make any garden wildlife-friendly by adding in native plantings, such as a row of winterberry (Ilex verticillata, a deciduous native holly) and viburnum (Viburnum dentatum), under-planted with Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). It is straightforward and uncomplicated.
The above planting was implemented (minus the Virginia creeper) in an Edgartown client garden. It is a hub of insect and avian activity all season long.
New naming
Dogwood, for many a family of beloved small trees and shrubs, is now going by several new binomial names. This is the kind of very irksome thing that happens in plant world; it is a result of progress.
In science, things are surmised, or known, until more is known and they are proven otherwise. Based on obvious similarities and characteristics, plants are thought to be related, causing them to be placed in taxa: family groupings, genus/genera. However, as DNA analysis has become common and fast, some former family groupings have been broken apart even further, into separate genera.
Although tags on the small flowering dogwood trees at nurseries will still read ‘Cornus’, these are now Benthamidia. Their cousins, the shrubby dogwoods, such as those with bright colored twigs, have become Swida; and the cutest of all, the minute bunchberry, now goes by a real mouthful, Chamaepericlymenum canadense.
Inside garden
Forcing branches: Now is a good time to begin cutting branches for flowers and foliage. Try edgeworthia, quince, forsythia, pear, and flowering almond.
The many trays of seedlings uncurling into life require vigilance and care. Overwatering, too warm or too cold temperatures, low light, whitefly, and fungus gnats are all areas for attention. Neem oil, insecticidal soap, and “hort oil” are your human-friendly aids for indoor plant care.
Today’s humidity level is 41 percent. Agaves are the sort of strikingly handsome plants that thrive in cool, low-humidity conditions with thermostats set low. Many can summer outside right along with the other container plants that require typical watering schedules, but these need little attention and water to look amazing.
Agaves can live for years, being decorative and asking little in return. The Agave americana ‘Variegata’ pictured was a gift from Allen Haskell and has lived here since the mid-90s. Plant Delights Nursery (catalogue page pictured) offers a very wide array of species and cultivars.
Follow to this link, primarily about the downsides of feeding deer in winter, for a more complete look at the ways deer forage and their ruminant physiology: jasonbittel.substack.com/p/the-worst-thing-you-can-do-for-deer
