native flora and fauna

Last Saturday I went to a conference on native flora and fauna called Through the Eyes of Nature:The Birds' View of Landscaping

It was pretty interesting. I could sum it up in a few sentences. Basically it's all about providing the basics of food and shelter in as many ways as possible to attract the most species of fauna as possible.

1. Native plants don't need as much maintenance as exotics. They are genetically programmed to thrive on tough conditions.
2. Native fauna enjoy living and eating in pockets of native plantings.
3. Birds in particular like a variety of native plants, from the tall oaks, to the medium birch, to the low juneberry, to the small bearberry. Most birds like trees under 15 feet tall or so.
4. You can attract twice as much species of bird if you add a water feature to your landscaping, twice more then that if your water feature flows or drips in some ways.
5. Dead trees and brush (snags) provide sanctuary and food to birds.

A lot of this repeats many of the lessons I've learned form Forest Gardening and Permaculture principles.

Landscape architecture is extremely important for overyielding polycultures. Perennial polyculture patches of native species of various heights and structure fill various niches that are necessary to provide food and shelter for the most amount of fauna species as possible.

Double Dig

I decided to do a little experiment in the front of our duplex. I decided to combine the Biointensive double dug bed and the newspaper sheet mulching of Forest Gardening fame. The area I had to work with was about 10 feet wide and 7 feet deep. I left a small 4 by 7 plot there on the south side with some Solomons Seal, tulips, ferns, and a small oak tree. I'm not sure what we'll plant there but it will probably be a combination of shade tolerant perennials and some edible annuals.

In the first picture I have dug the first row out and put it on a plastic sheet to use for the last row. I then spread a small amount of compost I picked up at the local free compost pile. It was pretty nice stuff, not too much sticks and garbage. I had barely enough to count, but at least it was something. I then dug the next row and filled the first row. With my crappy shovel I loosened the second row up. I noticed some clay compaction.

















You can see my progress. The soil was dry but nice and black. I mixed in the pine needles that lay about from the big white pine north of the house.

It was sweaty work, and took about an hour and a half. When I was done I raked the soil so that it was somewhat even. Then I soaked a whole bunch of newspaper and laid it down on top of the the loose soil, overlapping the edges by six inches or so, 5 to 8 pages thick.

The paper dried quickly, and I noticed it blowing away, so I decided to go get some more free compost, two garbage bags worth, and spread it on top to keep it from blowing away. Now it kind of looks like shit, but what can you do. At some point I want to get about 4 times as much compost to lay down on top, and also a nice layer of mulch to retain moisture and prevent overheating of the soil, but I'm done for the day and I have work tomorrow and a full weekend so maybe I'll get to that next week at some point.