Trash is Gone, the Watershed is Clean!

April 12 was our annual watershed clean-up and it was a beautiful day for getting in the creek and getting the trash out!

The officials numbers are:
37 bags of trash
8 bags of recycling
one shopping cart
one bike
one suitcase
miscellaneous metal pieces and car part
64 volunteers for a total of 161 hours
woo! woo!

We also pulled garlic mustard that day.  This invasive weed was just starting to show its head, but we managed to pull 8 bags.

Thank you to everyone who came out and to the Westmoreland Garden Club who partners with us every year taking the lower part of the Little Falls Branch while we take the upper part and the Willett Branch.  And thanks to Tim Eden and his son for volunteering the next weekend to finish the job by picking up the creek that runs between Kenwood and the Little Falls Parkway.

Planting for Butterflies

I have been revisiting Doug Tallamy's excellent book Bringing Nature Home when I came across this list of natives to plant to attract butterflies and moths on his website.  Doug's book is an exhaustive and inspiring look at natives plants and their place in the food chain. Even if you can only plant two of three of these flowers in your yard, you are creating a habitat that will pay off not only in butterflies and moths, but in song birds and more. Non-natives have no food value for many of our pollinators which then effects the birds that eat the larva of these insects and so on up the food chain.

So, when you're thinking of what to plant this year - take this list with you and see if you can't find some room for some of these lovely flowers in your yard.


Common Name          Plant Genus       Number of Butterfly/moth species supported
Goldenrod                  Solidago                      115
Asters                        Aster                           112
Sunflower                   Helianthus                     73
Joe pye,                     Boneset Eupatorium      42
Morning glory            Ipomoea                       39
Sedges                      Carex                            36
Honeysuckle              Lonicera                       36
Lupine                       Lupinus                         33
Violets                       Viola                            29
Geraniums                 Geranium                      23
Black-eyed susan      Rudbeckia                    17
Iris                            Iris                                17
Evening primrose       Oenothera                    16
Milkweed                 Asclepias                      12
Verbena                   Verbena                        11
Beardtongue             Penstemon                      8
Phlox                        Phlox                              8
Bee balm                  Monarda                         7
Veronica                  Veronica                        6
Little bluestem          Schizachyrium                6
Cardinal flower         Lobelia                           4