Early spring wildflowers in our yard

Here's a brief post- a look at what is flowering this week in our garden. Above are shooting stars (Dodecatheon conjugens), dramatic, if not tiny.

Below the prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) is pinking up.One thing I am really happy about is that we have incorporated a lot of diversity in our garden, and by diversity, I don't mean rare plants. Most plants in our garden are locally common and easy to grow. The reason I like this, is that what is flowering in our garden is also in bloom on the hills, forests and remnant short grass prairies around Missoula.

Below the prairie crocus or pasque flower (Pulsatilla patens) is starting to bloom in the shadier areas of our yard.

But in the front prairie, the is a lot more happening. The sagebrush buttercups (Ranunculus glaberrimus), the first to flower are still hanging on...

and so are the aptly named yellowbells (Frittellaria pudica).

I suspect if I looked hard enough, I'd find some lomatium in flower, but why spoil all the surprises in one day.

Soon, however, lots more species will join in the bloom, like bluebells (Mertensia oblongifloia),

larkspur (Delphinium bicolor),

and even arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata), which had a good year last year. Let's hope the seedlings that showed their first leaves last year will be back for another. Then in a mere 5 or 6 six short years, our little prairie will be awash in balsamroot!

Native Plant Society/ Native Plant Gardening Workshop Presentation

Thanks to Catherine Cain, the Calypso Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society and the Big Hole Watershed Weed Committee for organizing such a wonderful Native Plant Gardening Workshop. It was a fantastic turnout, and I am already looking forward to attending next year's event.

As promised, click here to download a .pdf of the presentation I gave this morning.

Also, in talking to some of you this morning, here are some past blog posts that might be helpful:
How to remove your lawn
Important plants for hummingbirds
Time series and change in our garden
Growing a bird garden- a link to download the Montana Outdoors article
How to build a brush pile

Thanks again, and I hope you all enjoyed the workshop.

Upcoming Native Plant Gardening Workshops

Planning a garden?
This is my favorite time of the year- a time to plan and make some changes in your garden. If you are thinking about adding more native plants or attracting wildlife, here are two workshops I'll be teaching in the next month or so.

The first workshop, co-hosted by the Calypso Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society and the Big Hole Watershed Weed Committee, focuses on native plants for creating a wildlife friendly garden, and it will be similar to the talk I gave the the Montana Nursery and Landscape Association annual meeting (Click here for more information or to download my presentation). This should be a wonderful event, and it is located in beautiful Divide, Montana on April 3.Click here to download the flyer

The second workshop will be held on May 1 in Missoula at the The Montana Natural History Center and covers using native plants in a sustainable landscape and deals more with plant selection and garden design. The workshop will feature classroom time and a visit to a local native plant garden (probably my home). Click here for a link to the Montana Natural History Center and information about registering for the class.

Space in both classes is limited, so register now! I hope to see you there.

Buttercups: someone's got to be first

Although they are not my favorite flower, per se, I do find myself photographing them the most and even writing about them as much as any other flower (click here for example). I'd be remiss if I didn't point them out the moment they start flowering. You don't hear me chronicling the side flowered mitreworts (Mitella breweri) first bloom, though.Sagebrush buttercups (Ranunculus glaberrimus) are, if nothing else, the first flowers to bloom in the spring, and these little flowers start the annual progression of flowers until October or November in our garden.

Don't get me wrong, they are beautiful flowers, and a fine plant in your garden, but they are not as my wife would say, "all that and a bag of chips". So what is "all that and a bag of chips?" June's new sweater. Our cat, June, has a new haircut (the lion cut) and a new spring wardrobe.

Winter greenhouse wrap up

It worked.
As I have started to spring- and summer-ize my greenhouse I figured I should do a winter greenhouse gardening wrap up. Going into the winter I was really curious how my design and all the thought and planning would work out for my- I mean, my wife’s- greenhouse. In the end I am very pleased with how it performed this winter. However, we did learn a lot too, and armed with this knowledge, I am excited for next fall and winter. Too bad we have to deal with spring and summer. A few weeks ago, I removed insulation from the windows, re-installed the solar window openers, removed the cold frames and started planting a lot of seeds in the greenhouse (native seeds from my list of 2010 Garden Projects, see photo of the flats at the beginning of the post) .Here were our goals for the greenhouse: essentially to grow cold hardy vegetables in an unheated greenhouse all winter, without supplemental heat.

What worked:

• The greenhouse design with insulated north wall and north roof, steeply pitched south-facing roof, added winter insulation, compost furnace, barrels of water, and cold frames all worked well to achieve our goal of having the greenhouse stay above freezing through the winter (click here to see the winterization of the greenhouse). We only heated it with an oil filled electric radiator for four days when temps were below -10 F. Mainly the reason I heated it on those days was because I was afraid of the water barrels freezing and if they did they would end up cooling the greenhouse of weeks or months!


• The Compost furnace produced heat, and the compost composted all winter.


• The solar pool cover storm windows- I like this design so much I am going to build something similar for the shade cloth this summer- removable framed panels. I’ll keep the solar pool cover panels on for another few weeks.

What didn’t, or what to change for next winter:

• We started many of the vegetables that we grew int he winter too late, this year we will start them in August rather than in October or November to get trough the winter and be productive all winter. There is so little light from mid Dec-mid Jan so we can't count on too much plant growth during this time (I know I read that many times but I had to experience it to understand it, I guess).


• Pot up more herbs from the vegetable garden and bring them into the greenhouse in the fall earlier
  -I did this with mint and chives, but I probably could have done this earlier


• I never did add a storm door- maybe this summer I’ll add a storm/ screen door combo- I guess I have to add this to the 2010 Garden project to do list.

Grill shed

Now I feel like I am picking my way through my 2010 Garden Project to do list. The latest victim: a grill shed. A pretty small structure but one that is useful and I think is an important visual element in the backyard.As far as the visual component- I tried to make this shed a "transitional" design, that is one that bridges two styles in my garden. Also, the grill has always kind of stood out in the garden and kind of just floated there- it needed something to ground it and tie it to the landscape and visually connect it to the other structures and elements.

I noticed after last summer when I built the tool closet and the greenhouse is that there were two styles in the garden- the painted structures with multi-paned windows and the structures made from my old cedar fence like the laundry screen , various trellises, grape arbor, benches and vegetable garden structures.

I tried to design the grill shed to blend the two styles by taking stylistic cues from the arbor, laundry screen and elements like the multi paned divided light windows from the tool closet and greenhouse. So, this is a weathered cedar structure with painted windows, and a galvanized roof like most other structures in the garden.

In the photo below, you can see the grape arbor and the cucumber trellis are repetitions of the multi-paned window forms.

By the way, all the materials for this little shed were purchased from Home Resource, a non-profit building materials reuse center, who, by the way is in the midst of a one-time fundraising campaign to move to a new, larger location to better serve the community. To donate or volunteer to help with the move go here.

Spring cleaning for the nest boxes

Spring is nearly here, though the calendar does not say it, and the groundhog evidently begs to differ. Nevertheless, some of the first signs of spring are apparent; black-capped chickadees are singing their lovey-dovey "cheeseburger"song, the smell of road-killed skunk (ahhh, spring), and a mourning dove in our yard today. Soon robins will be back, and spring will be here in earnest. Or not- it is February in Montana after all, but I digress. Anyway, I'll return to thoughts of spring...


February is an important time to think about birdhouses. The following post contains some information about nest boxes I wrote in a post about the same time last year "Bird house basics". February is when birds begin courting and looking for nesting places. Having a bird nest and raise its chicks in your yard is very gratifying for wildlife gardeners.

Since I like to keep the nest boxes empty in the winter so many birds will use them as roosts in our yard as a way to escape the cold (see here). Now is the time to clean and refill the nest boxes and it is a fun annual rite of spring (that along with connecting my rain barrels to our downspoutsm,, but that will have to wait, a while). This year the added bonus are tiny cameras I am going to install and hopefully post pictures or streaming video to this blog. This also is the first item on my 2010 to do list I can cross off, and an exciting one.

Although it is fun to see birds nest in your yard, there are many things to consider before hanging a birdhouse. Know what species of bird you want to attract and have reasonable expectations (click here for more information). In our yard, red-breasted nuthatches, black-capped chickadees, and northern flickers are the ones we are most likely to attract. Since they are cavity nesters (that is, they nest in hollow spaces in dead trees), they require box-like houses that simulate tree cavities. The reason I encourage people to cater toward cavity nesters is that these birds are having a tough time, from habitat loss, loss of snags (nesting sites), to competition from invasive birds (typically secondary cavity nesters). Although chickadees, nuthatches, and northern flickers will nest in an empty box, they prefer to excavate the cavity themselves, because this assures a clean home free of pests and predators.

Red-breasted nuthatches are the first to begin excavating their selected box- they begin excavating in early to mid February (between February 5 and 21 at my house) and they are usually complete by the first week of April (April 1-9) when they begin to fill their boxes with nesting material. Yesterday (Feb 15), I watched as a pair started excavating.

Black-capped chickadees start excavating about a month after nuthatches, with peak excavating around first week of April (from March 25- April 4), until middle April when they bring in nesting material (April 11-15). But they investigate and start defending nest sites in February.

Northern flickers are on a similar schedule as chickadees and they begin excavating in late March – early April (March 24-April 8), but they search for nesting locations in February and may do some exploratory excavating as early as the beginning of February.

As far as cleaning the boxes and refilling, below are some pictures from a chickadee box and flicker box. In the photo below, the lid on the nest box is opened to reveal the excavated cavity. Here you can see how they removed a lot of material, but still left many packed wood chips. This is why it is important to tightly compact the chips.

Here I removed the nest, and the portion of wood chips that covered the top of the nest, you can see they excavated about 1/2 of the box.Here is the nest removed form the box. Chickadees and nuthatches will add material for their nests. Whereas chickadees use animal hair, fur, and moss (this as I have mentioned is the best use for introduced squirrels), nuthatches will shred up bark into various layers of increasingly soft bedding, and they also smear sap on the outside of the hole to discourage insects and parasites from bothering the nestlings. It is really fun to watch them do this. You can help chickadees by providing fur ( for more information click here), animal hair or sphagnum moss in your yard for them. The nest is in two parts, a round egg area, and the base.Below are pictures of tree nests from past years, each are unique, based on the availability of nesting material, the age and experience of the builders, etc... They are all soft and adorable, though. You can even see a couple of eggs in one of the nests- this was from a the second clutch one year that evidently had poor germination (a little something for you gardeners).Here is the box cleaned out. This is a good time to inspect for any damage and do repairs. If there is any water penetrating into the box, fix the cause and let the box dry out before repacking. Although I build nest boxes from western red cedar, a naturally decay- and insect-resistant wood, which needs no protection from the weather, I fill my boxes with Douglas fir (typically chips from my thickness planer or jointer- see below), but you can use any species except cedar, teak, or mahogany. These species contain oils that prevent rot and insect damage but the dust can irritate nestlings. It is important to compact the chips, and I just use a piece of wood to pound it into submission. By compacting the sawdust, the birds can excavate a cavity without the rest of the filling collapsing on them.Normally that is it, but this year, I got a birthday present from my wife...mini cameras! These are the Hawkeye nature cameras (this is not a paid product endorsement, unfortunately). I removed camera shield, to take up less space, I hope this is not a fatal flaw. In adding these cameras, I did not pack the wood chips to fill the box completely as you'll see. The first step is to mount the little bracket, and my only tip here is to mount it, so it is loose enough to be able to swivel the bracket to screw the camera to the bracket. Here is the camera installed in the chickadee nest box, notice the grove cut into the side for the wire to pass.
Below is my northern flicker nest bow, and one thing to notice is that flickers just about completely remove all the wood chips for the box and they do not require any nesting material. although they may use an empty box, one benefit to having he house filled, is that is discourages use by non-target birds like house sparrows and starlings, which will not excavate. However, once the flickers excavate their nest box, often European starlings will follow. It is crucial to remove the starlings, their nests (they bring in nesting material), or otherwise dissuade them from taking the flicker’s nest box. Click here for more information about flickers and starlings.

Below, the camera installed in the flicker box. Plenty of roomHere is the completed, freshly refilled nest box with a camera, waiting to be excavated. If you look closely, you will see one of my own inventions on entrance hole- a Nesting Indicator Bar, also known as a "twig". I place these "twigs" in the entrance hole of all my nest boxes to monitor if birds are investigating the boxes. Kind of low-tech compared to the mini cameras.

Spring is near.

Help Home ReSource Move!

If you've read much of my blog, you know how much I love to shop and donate materials and time to Home ReSource. Home ReSource (HR) is a non-profit building materials reuse center in Missoula, since 2003. Right now, HR is involved in a fundraising campaign to move to a bigger, more accessible location (the old 4G's building on Russel St. near the Good Food Store). The larger location will allow HR a greater ability to serve the community- HR has drastically outgrown its current location. In addition, the new location will also enable HR to expand its service to the community through some new programs.

This fundraising campaign is a one time "ask"- HR is a self-supporting, non-profit that does not engage in annual fundraising.

Watch this brief video and Matt, Lauren (the co-founders, and co- executive directors) and Lucas (past board-president) eloquently describe the mission and the need for the move. It is a great 7-minute video that you will enjoy and I am sure you will be inspired. Hopefully inspired to contribute!

Chronicled on my blog are garden projects I have made using HR materials like my greenhouse, tool closet, soon to be completed grill shed. But I also use their materials for so many interior projects, ranging from framing to plumbing, and furniture.

Below are a couple of pictures of some recent projects like a breakfast nook and pass through, that regular blog readers would not have seen. Below is Alex, the 2009 cat of the year, and a pass through using framing, casings, windows, and hardware from HR.

HR has allowed me to do what I love, use reused and recycled materials for garden, carpentry, furniture and home projects. This is very important to me, and without HR, it would be very difficult. Unlike many similar salvage, for-profit business, HR as a non-profit organization that is invested in the community and has a strong social mission. Although the cost savings are huge from shopping at HR, to me what is more important is that I am reusing building materials and maintaining historic house parts for use in the home and garden.

There are lots of ways to stay up to date on HR; you can receive weekly email updates on materials and events, follow them on Facebook or Twitter, and by all means, shop there! I do- every week. It is my favorite store in the world, ask my wife.

Please consider contributing- even a $25 will go a along way (and you or your company will get immortalized in the GARDEN of giving- see, here is the relationship to a garden blog!). Click here to donate. I realize most of the readers of Montana Wildlife Gardener are from out of state (or even out of the country), and may never visit HR. However, the environmental and social mission of HR is fantastic and far-reaching.

2010 Garden Projects

There is always something to do or change in the garden, and this is a fun time of the year to think about planning for changes. It is also a nice time of the year to review (either through photos, or a garden journal), what worked in the garden, and what didn't- either from a design standpoint or a plant standpoint. The really fun thing about gardening is things are easy to change, and trying new things is fun; a garden is a constantly evolving extension of your lifestyle and a reflection of what you love to do.

So, here is a list of projects I hope to accomplish this winter/ spring. There will inevitably be additions, and changes, but that is part of the fun.

• New raised bed for the vegetable garden (mainly for onions) - next to grape arbor in the photo above. Move current occupants of area that will become raised bed to front yard.
• Reduce bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoreugnaria spicata) in front yard and replace with displaced plants in the area that will be occupied by the new raised bed.
• Remove one Steuben blue grape vine (we have two vines that produce over 50lbs of grapes/ year. That is a lot of jelly) and replace with a Himrod (seedless table grape). In the photo above one of the grapes is going for a ride.
• Install cameras in bird boxes and connect to Internet for live streaming bird voyeurism!
• Complete outdoor grill shed (all I need is to install the roof, so I am waiting for someone with galvanized delta rib roofing to remove theirs and donate it to Home Resource).
• Remove one section of lawn and replace with natives like hairy golden aster (Heterotheca villosa), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), showy fleabane (Erigeron speciosus) that I will mow to form a meadow. We’ll see how this works.
• Prune clematis on garage (this is a much bigger project than you would expect).
• Start a bunch of native plants in the greenhouse to add to our front yard to replace some bluebunch wheatgrass and blue flax (Linum lewisii). Soon. Very soon.
• Make a new composter?

Lots to do. Exciting.

Montana Nursery and Landscape Association Presenation

Thank you all that were at my talk, Conservation Gardening: Landscaping with Montana native plants for Montana native wildlife, at the Montana Nursery and Landscape Association's Green Expo. I hope my presentation on using native plants for wildlife was useful and inspiring. Here is a link to download my presentation from today.