Volume 8, Issue 1Winter 2015

Florida Wildflower Foundation Quarterly Newsletterwww.FlaWildflowers.org

news from the FIELD

Produced in partnership with the Florida Scenic Highways program. More information at www.FloridaScenicHighways.com.Page 4

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Volume 8, Issue 1

North Florida Wildflower FestThe North Florida Wildflower Festival

is set for April 25 in Blountstown. The event features wildflower and gardening-themed products, plants, arts and crafts, kids’ activities, entertainment and educational opportunities, and will serve as a forum to promote environmentally-friendly and sustainable gardening practices with speakers, demonstrations, plant and gardening vendors, and a kid fun station.

The festival will be held in Blountstown’s quaint downtown area, and will celebrate the beauty and charm of the region. Festival-goers can stroll through Magnolia Square, the Preble-Rish Gallery featuring the Clyde Butcher photography exhibit The Apalachicola River: An American Treasure, and the M&B Train Depot Museum, as well as the Blountstown Greenway bike trail which connects downtown to the Panhandle Pioneer Settlement.

The North Florida Wildflower Festival is an initiative of the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce, in cooperation with the Florida Wildflower Foundation, Florida Panhandle Wildflower Alliance, University of Florida IFAS, RiverWay South Choctawhatchee Apalachicola, and Blountstown Main Street. The Chamber of Commerce is dedicated to supporting and enhancing economic development while promoting natural resources and eco-tourism.

Vendors and sponsors for the event are needed. For sponsorship and vendor opportunities, contact Kristy Terry with the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce at 850-674-4519 or kristy@calhounco.org. For more information on the event, visit www.facebook.com/NFLWildflowerFest.

Spring will be in full swing in downtown DeLand when MainStreet DeLand’s Florida Wildflower & Garden Festival takes over West Indiana Avenue on March 28. This year’s event includes unique vendors, demonstrations, zoo animals and children’s activities, as well as a full menu of presentations by wildflower and gardening experts.

The Florida Wildflower Foundation will be joined by organizations such as UF-IFAS Master Gardeners and DeLand Garden Club, all of which will be giving out free educational resources. Vendors will offer books, wildflower seeds and plants, honey, garden utensils, yard art, planters, photos, arts and crafts and more.

Gardening and wildflower-related topics will be featured from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Athens Theater. Speakers include Dana Venrick

of Quality Green Specialists; Dr. David Hall; Taryn Evans of Creative Garden Structures; Tom MacCubbin, UF/IFAS Extension agent emeritus

and radio and television host of “Better Lawns and Gardens”; Dr. Hari Pulapaka, Cress Restaurant owner; and orchid expert Prem Subrahmanyam.

There also will be hands-on gardening workshops at Chess Park, including Florida Friendly Landscaping, Building a Raised Bed,

and Wildflower Seed Balls, a children’s activity presented by FWF.

A free shuttle will run throughout the day between the Wildflower & Garden Festival and the DeLand Outdoor Art Festival at nearby Earl Brown Park. For more information on the event, including a schedule of presentations and workshops, visit www.floridawildflowerfestival.com.

Celebrate spring at the Wildflower & Garden Festival!

Find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/FloridaWildflowerFoundation

Enriching lives with Florida’s native wildflowers

INSIDEWildflowers, Naturally! recognizes

Andrea England’s landscape ............. 2

Calendar .............................................. 2

Member profile: Linda Lord and

Kay Yeuell ......................................... 3

Member corner ..................................... 3

Review of Milkweeds: A Conservation

Practitioners Guide ........................... 4

North Florida Wildflower Festival ......... 4

Become a member ............................... 4

Follow us on Twitter: @FlaWildflowers Read our blog: www.floridawildflowerfoundation.blogspot.com

When you enter Washington and Jackson counties via Interstate 10, you will see a wonderful display of spring wildflowers along the roadsides. In Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District 3, the Marianna Operations office (which maintains state and federal roadsides in Jackson and Washington counties), led by Operations Engineer Chris Connor, has been safely leaving large areas of roadsides in their natural state for many years.

As a result, large stands of naturally occurring wildflowers have been able to flourish. This is exactly the intent of the new FDOT Wildflower Management Program procedure. However, in most areas throughout the state, the new procedure is just beginning to be implemented, so it will take time to modify mowing practices statewide, which will allow wildflowers to naturally re-establish their growth and bloom. This is what we can look forward to seeing along Florida’s state-maintained roadsides.

In late September 2014, I visited the Jackson County section of I-10 with Connor and was able to get a close look at what the future can look like with the modified management procedure

for roadside maintenance. Safety is, of course, the first consideration. With wide rights of way, it is possible to keep all of the narrow medians and the areas adjacent to pavement well mowed. Large slopes along the I-10 roadsides in Jackson and Washington counties are mown 5 feet up the slope and the rest of the slope is allowed to grow freely from spring through fall. Once the fall blooms have set seed, the slopes are fully mowed in winter, cutting back woody plants that would take over the area if left uncut. The result is stunning. No planting or tending is required; nature does the necessary work. When I walked in these areas, pollinators were abundant.

Reduced mowing programs have many benefits. Less mowing saves money. Nature can do the work of bringing lovely flowers to the roadsides, which means FDOT doesn’t have to plant flowers. Motorists are more alert from the ever-changing beauty on the long highway; pollinators have abundant sources of food; and the Florida Transportation Plan goal of connected biological corridors is met. FDOT District 3 is leading the way in showing how possible and how successful this approach can be.

For photographs of this beautiful roadside, visit www.flickr.com/photos/wildflowersflorida and look at the album “I-10 in Jackson County, Florida.”

Eleanor Dietrich is the Florida Wildflower Foundation’s FDOT-Panhandle Wildflower Alliance liaison.

FDOT District 3 reaps success of wildflower management program by Eleanor Dietrich

Our newsletter is going GREEN!

In an effort to reduce our paper consumption, the Florida Wildflower Foundation has decided to go to a digital-only newsletter format. This will be the last issue that is printed and mailed.

If you currently receive a printed copy and would like to continue receiving our quarterly newsletter, please contact us at 407-622-1606 or smatrazzo@flawildflowers.org with your email address.

Milkweeds: A Conservation Practitioners Guide. Plant Ecology, Seed Production Methods and Habitat Restoration Opportunities by Brianna Borders and Eric Lee-Mader; review by Claudia Larsen

In response to outcries from conservationists and researchers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently conducting a status review of one of our favorite butterflies, the monarch, to be included on the endangered species list. Many of us are aware of the monarch’s population decline that has been well documented by researchers. Weather, habitat destruction of overwintering grounds in California and Mexico, and loss of food source on migration routes have caused great concern in the last few years.

The Xerces Society’s insight into factors that influence monarch butterfly populations has pointed to many things we cannot control. However, the increased production and planting of the monarch larval food plant, milkweed, is certainly an environmental movement that can be achieved on a large scale in the United States.

In 2010, in collaboration with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Monarch Joint Venture, and other community partners, the Xerces Society launched Project Milkweed, a program designed to produce new sources of milkweed seed in areas of the

monarch’s breeding range where seed has not been reliably available (California, the Southwest, Texas and Florida), to raise public awareness about milkweeds’ value to monarchs and native pollinators, and to promote the inclusion of milkweeds in habitat restoration efforts.

To help facilitate the program, the Xerces Society’s Brianna Borders (plant ecologist) and Eric Lee-Mader (pollinator program co-director) have compiled an excellent resource for conservation professionals, gardeners and landowners. Milkweeds: A Conservation Practitioners Guide is a 146-page manual for all things monarch and milkweed. It focuses on four main topics:

• Milkweed Biology and Ecology • The Value of Milkweeds to Wildlife • Milkweed Propagation and Seed Production • Using Milkweeds in Habitat Restoration

Plantings

Check the Foundation’s blog (http://floridawildflowerfoundation.blogspot.com/2015/01/xerxes-milkweeds-review.html) for a brief but thorough review. I urge anyone interested in this subject to read the full guide, which can be viewed or downloaded for free at www.xerces.org/milkweeds-a-conservation-practitioners-guide. If you want to skip to the end, there is a nice synopsis of how to establish milkweeds from seeds that would

be helpful to the amateur grower (p106-109), as well as a complete list of milkweeds native to the U.S. and Canada. If you are a researcher, the acknowledgements contain much, if not most, of the scientific literature available on milkweeds and related science.

Milkweeds: A Conservation Practitioners Guide is an amazing publication in that it compiles years of research on one species of wildflower. I truly hope its helps milkweeds regain their place in our world.

Page 2 Volume 8, Issue 1

Wildflowers, Naturally! recognizes Andrea England’s home landscape by Stacey Matrazzo

The Wildflowers, Naturally! program recognizes gardens throughout the state that have areas dedicated to native wildflowers, flowering shrubs and trees. In this issue, we are featuring the landscape of Andrea England of Ocoee.

Andrea England is a native plant enthusiast who has been gardening in Central Florida for more than 20 years. Since moving into her Ocoee home with her husband and two children, she has been gradually replacing turf grass with native wildflowers, grasses and other native plants. So far, she has dedicated more than 1,000 square feet of her yard to wildflowers—95 percent of which are native.

When asked what motivated her to change her yard to a mostly native landscape, Andrea said, “When we moved into our new-construction home, there was no wildlife! We had so much grass, but no birds, no butterflies... I missed that.” So she decided to remove some of the turf grass, as well as invasives such as Nandina that were installed by the builder. In their place, she envisioned a naturalistic meadow planting.

Before selecting plants, she researched

the plant community that was indigenous to her area and found it to be sandhill. This helped guide her choice of plants, which includes butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa), Chapman’s blazing star (Liatris chapmanii), Florida paintbrush (Carphephorus corymbosus), sandhill black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia mollis) and yellow coneflower (Ratibida pinnata). She also incorporated grasses such as lopsided Indiangrass (Sorghastrum secundum), wiregrass (Aristida stricta) and purple lovegrass (Eragrostis spectabilis).

As a result of planting wildflowers, Andrea has seen a huge increase in wildlife activity. She’s spotted julias, monarchs, gulf fritillaries and red admiral butterflies; bees, dragonflies, moths, wasps, and caterpillars; toads, frogs and snakes; and a variety of birds including hummingbirds, Eastern phoebes, loggerhead shrikes, red-shouldered hawks and so many others.

Andrea is also passionate about photography, and created a blog, MyFloridaMeadow.com, where she shares photos of her landscape and of the wildlife that visits it. (The images here were taken by Andrea.) In addition to many beautiful photos,

Calendar

Feb 28: Green Planet Festival, Broward County Convention Center, Ft. Lauderdale. www.GreenPlanetFestival.com

Mar 4: Why Wildflowers?, presented by FWF Exec. Dir. Lisa Roberts, Orlando Garden Club. Details: 407-900-8965

Mar 10: Principles of Sustainable Landscaping, presented by FWF Exec. Dir. Lisa Roberts, Garden Club of Mount Dora. Details: 352-408-7110

Mar 19: Why Wildflowers?, ESA Sorority, DeLand. Details: 386-736-0916

Mar 28: Florida Wildflower & Garden Festival, DeLand. www.FloridaWildflowerFestival.com

Apr 4: Wildflower Dance Fundraiser, Tallahassee. Details: eleanor43@aol.com

Apr 4: 10 Easy Wildflowers, presented by Nancy Bissett, Cooper Memorial Library, Clermont. Details: 407-448-6195

Apr 9–10: The Native Plant Show, Osceola Heritage Park, Kissimmee. www.TheNativePlantShow.com

May 4–10: National Wildflower Week

May 17: 10 Easy Wildflowers, presented by Nancy Bissett, Trout Lake Nature Center, Eustis. Details: 352-669-2398

Visit FlaWildflowers.org/news.php for full calendar and event details.

the blog also includes resources for establishing a wildflower meadow, as well as links to native plant nurseries.

Although she has replaced a large percentage of turf grass with native wildflowers and grasses, Andrea said her yard is still a work in progress. Some of it is trial and error; some plants she maintains, while others she lets go to seed to see if they will fill in the gaps. Right now, for example, her butterflyweed has an abundance of seed pods that she hopes will soon disperse and flourish.

WILDFLOWERS, naturally! Celebrating Florida’s First FlowersDo you love native Florida wildflowers? Have you incorporated them into your landscape? If

so, the Florida Wildflower Foundation wants to recognize your efforts.Wildflowers, Naturally! is a program that recognizes landscapes

throughout the state that have areas dedicated to native wildflowers, and flowering shrubs, grasses and vines. Recognized landscapes help increase awareness of Florida native wildflowers, promote wildflower conservation across the state, and educate others about landscaping with Florida natives.

Join our growing list of recognized landscapes!

John Bailey, Tallahassee Evan Earle, OldsmarTrevor Nimmons , Indialantic Amy Spies, Port Orange

Christine Skipp, R. B. Hunt Elementary School, St. Augustine

Find more information and apply today at www.flawildflowers.org/wildflowers_naturally.php

Save the date !2015 Florida

Wildflower SymposiumSept. 25–26

Leu Gardens, Orlando

Volume 8, Issue 1 Page 3

Florida Wildflower Foundation member Kay Yeuell was born in Orange County, and spent his childhood in Florida and Massachusetts. After graduating from Boston University, Yeuell ran a family manufacturing business in the Boston area for 25 years. When he retired in the mid-1980s, Yeuell moved back to Florida with his wife, Linda Lord.

Yeuell recalls, “The state’s economy was booming, and rapid development and urban sprawl were drastically changing the local landscape I had known as a child.” So he got involved in environmental issues. “I started doing water quality sampling for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection while pursuing a degree in environmental studies at Rollins College, and then worked as an environmental manager for the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.” Since retiring from that position, Yeuell has racked up thousands of volunteer hours, the most satisfying of which, he

says, was working to restore natural lands at the Disney Wilderness Preserve.

Lord, who was born on the Caribbean island of Dominica, a lush tropical rainforest landscape “full of astonishingly large and exotic creatures and plants,” moved to Iowa with her family when she was a child. “All of the family had a strong environmental awareness, especially my great uncle, the naturalist Aldo Leopold, and I grew

up immersed in that,” says Lord, a graduate of both Harvard and Boston universities. The move to Florida shifted her focus to environmental issues. She worked for an environmental foundation in Winter Park, and for the past 20-plus years has been a technical editor and writer for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Yeuell and Lord became acquainted with the Florida Wildflower Foundation thanks to fellow Maitland resident and FWF Executive Director Lisa Roberts. The two environmental enthusiasts support the Foundation “because it works to educate and support the efforts of people like us, one self-sustaining yard at a time. We also appreciate the work the Foundation is doing to address the big picture through planting and sustaining native wildflowers along rural roadsides.”

Read more about why they stay involved — as well as insight into their gardening practices and philosophy — in the discussion below:

Linda: Our home landscape is a mix of natives and exotics (the latter mostly well behaved). It is constantly evolving and changing as the amount of shade and other conditions in the garden change. Unfortunately, we have lost a number of trees over the years, including several huge hollies that were attacked by witch’s broom fungus, a couple of large Dutch elms and a cherry laurel tree that reached the end of their life spans, and a grapefruit tree that suffered a fatal decline from citrus greening. We replanted with native trees such as live oaks and winged elm, and added native shrubs, including American beautyberry, firebush, and Walter’s viburnum.

I am always open to planting more natives, but I like plants from other parts of the world — such as amaryllis and caladiums — too much to stop planting them entirely. One area I would like to work on is to plant more native perennials, to encourage even more insects and hummingbirds

to visit the garden. It has been so rewarding to see wildlife come

back as the plants have grown. There are many more birds and insects and lizards now. Soil that used to be compacted and apparently lifeless is full of earthworms. We have resident snakes and moles, as well as opossums and raccoons, who seem to like the abundant food supply. The plants mostly take care of themselves, while I spend much of my time pruning them and eliminating competitors. To me, it’s a matter of guiding, not controlling, the changes in the landscape — encouraging and supporting certain species and discouraging others, especially the garden “bullies” that want to take over (which can include both natives and non-natives).

Kay: What is so great about native wildflowers and other native plants is that they fit into their environment with a minimum of external aid and fuss. What is most important is the “minimum external aid” part. Over time, we have cut way back on the amount of grass in both front and back yards, and added drought-tolerant plants instead, with a layer of pine bark mulch to keep the weeds down. We don’t fertilize or use pesticides on our grass either. We do irrigate but not nearly as much as the previous owner.

If you like a plant, go for it, but remember: If it turns out to be aggressive in that location, you have an obligation to control it and also keep a lookout for seedlings that come from less careful neighbors. We are both always on the lookout for invasive exotics. These are noxious vines like skunkvine or wild balsam apple creeping over/under the neighbor’s fence, the air potato tuber or rosary pea carried in by land or air. Torpedo

grass is an aquatic menace that mysteriously sprang up from deep underground rhizomes in our upland garden and now slowly creeps into everything. We used to ignore asparagus fern seedlings but once established, they invade other plantings; now we pull them out ruthlessly.

Kay and Linda: Our advice is to always be open to experimentation, and to start small. You don’t have to uproot your whole garden to enjoy native wildflowers and the many bees, butterflies and other animals they attract. Just start with a few plants that you like in a small area, or interplant a few natives with other non-native plants, or put out a couple of garden pots and put wildflowers in those.

Our suburban garden is a work in progress, and it is far from perfect. We have made many mistakes over the years, and killed lots of plants. Overall, though, the garden is thriving and growing and changing. We think of it as a tiny part of a very big picture. And we are convinced that the contributions of many people, each made on a small scale, can make a huge difference over time.

A wildflower team: Kay Yeuell and Linda Lord by Dixie Tate

Meet FWF members Linda Lord and Kay Yeuell

What is so great about native wildflowers and other native plants is that they fit into their environment with a minimum of external aid and fuss.

— Kay Yeuell

Welcome members (r) – renewal

Business/ContributorMarlene Grover Darcey Phillips

Nancy Bissett / The Natives (r)Bruce Turley/Wilcox Nursery (r)

GeneralDubose Ausley (r) John BaileyPatricia Burgos (r) Keri ByrumCharles Crook (r) FNPS, Pawpaw ChapterJerry Fritz (r) Victoria Jones (r)William Jones (r) Gail Padgett (r)Blant Reeves (r) Betty Roberts (r)

Bob Stamps & Loretta SatterthwaiteGinny Stibolt (r) Kim Zarillo

License TagJoel Arant Bill Bates (r)Leigh Brooks (r) Ron Bynum (r)Marilyn Caruthers (r) Daniel Cooke (r)Eleanor Dietrich (r) Dara Dobson (r)Betty Dunckel (r) Joan ErwinJudy Gersony (r) Nancy Given (r)Maurice Hartman Marion Hilliard (r)Larry Hutt (r) Carolyn Kiel (r)Mary Frances Lawrie (r) Terry MainousKaren Meyer (r) Julie TewAdda J Wallace (r)

Student/SeniorRev. Jack Bittler Derek ClontzNoreen Engstrom (r) Judi KohlerPat Sentell