Monarch Watch Speaks Out About Raising Monarchs at Home

The discussion regarding raising monarchs in the home continues, with Monarch Watch weighing in today about their position on the practice. Dr. Orley "Chip" Taylor, founder of Monarch Watch, and one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet in regard to monarchs, felt compelled to release this statement, which should be of comfort to those who choose to raise monarchs:


Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2018 16:51:02
From: "Taylor Jr, Orley R"
Subject: Rethinking captive rearing

Greetings: I wasn't going to comment publicly on the captive rearing issue. However, since some of you rear monarchs, and Emma Pelton has chosen to post the Xerces [Society] position on our Monarch Watch discussion list, I feel compelled to articulate our position at Monarch Watch along with the reasoning we use to justify our position. For those of you that don't know, the position adopted by Xerces and MJV [Monarch Joint Venture] has created quite a stir on various Facebook sites and more than one Blog.

Our position at Monarch Watch is that we neither encourage or discourage rearing. As I will try to make clear, this is a low priority issue. Further, the concerns are exaggerated and unsupported by data. 

Facts, Observations, Questions, Tagging and Priorities

Facts
Monarch numbers have been declining since the mid 2000s coincident with the adoption of herbicide tolerant crop lines that facilitated the use of glyphosate that all but eliminated milkweed from these row crops.

Habitat loss has been invoked, and supported by data, as the most likely cause of the decline. The alternative hypothesis that the decline is due to an increase in mortality during the migration is unsupported by data.

Habitat loss continues. Estimates are that we are losing 1 million acres of grassland each year and are likely losing at least another million acres due to development and other forms of land conversion.

There is no credible data suggesting that we are restoring habitat for monarchs and pollinators at a rate that matches these losses. In other words, monarchs are losing habitat as we argue about the merits of one detail or another.

Cerro Pelón monarch sanctuary in the state of Mexico, in Central Mexico
February 20, 2018

If my predictions come true, the overwintering population in Mexico will be approximately 5 hectares - maybe more. That translates to at least 60 million monarchs. This will be the largest population since 2008 and may be the last big population for another decade and maybe ever due to changing spring conditions in Texas and higher temperature in May and early June. If you remember the conditions during 2012, those are in our future and it's those conditions that were the precursor to the low monarch return in the spring of 2013 and the alarmingly low population (.67 hectares) that winter.

Monarch larval monitoring and other studies show that 98% of all eggs and larvae succumb to predators or other conditions. 

Observation 
Most of those advocating the reduction and even the cessation of all rearing are not engaged in monarch rearing. Those doing the rearing are being told that what they are doing will have negative consequences for the population. These admonitions are supported by strongly worded opinions and references to conditions that do not apply to the average person rearing monarchs, e.g. the argument about inbreeding and genetic declines. 

While there are lots of data that show that LONG TERM cultures of various species often lose fitness, this argument DOES NOT apply to those who simply collect eggs and caterpillars in their gardens or along roadsides or even those who breed monarchs for 1-2 generations. In fact, it's not even clear that it applies to monarchs. 

How many breeders maintain long term inbreed cultures? We don't know. 
How often do breeders refresh their stocks? We don't know but have been told that "refreshing" stocks is common, mostly from northern states. 
How many breeders rear more than two of three generations per year? We don't know. 

 What does any of that have to do with those who harvest monarch eggs and larvae in their gardens and natural areas for rearing and release? Zero. While many are dismayed by commercial releases of monarchs, it's not prohibited. These "do not rear" directives will not impact commercial releases but they have raised concerns by many lay persons who enjoy rearing monarchs.

Under magnification, Oe spores can be seen as tiny football-
shaped particles among the larger monarch scales that
cover a monarch's body.

The fact that 98% of the monarch immatures are consumed by predators and parasites inspires people to engage in "monarch rescue," that is, harvesting monarch eggs and larvae and rearing them both indoors and outdoors to "save" them from their usual fate. So, is it really a bad thing to do this? What are the risks? 

Yes, the spread of O.e. (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha) could be a risk but that is easy to avoid if the foliage is sanitized before being fed to the larvae. Monarchs to be released could also be checked for O.e. spores and some people do that. Interestingly, we have found that, if you collect all the 5th instar larvae and rear them through indoors, you can suppress the tachinid fly population.

As to whether monarchs should be reared with the goal of increasing the population, the reality is that such efforts are likely to have little or no impact on the overall population. To have a real impact on population growth, monarchs would have to be released in the RIGHT places at the RIGHT times early in the season rather than during the migration.

Questions
        
How many monarchs are reared and released by amateurs relative to the total monarchs in the migration - 40,000 or maybe 60,000? 

We don't know.




Where and when are these monarchs released? Does it make a difference?


I don't have time to elaborate, but the tagging data, as well as the seasonal dynamics, show that the impact associated with the when and where of releases varies greatly across the continent. In short, the outcomes of a thousand monarchs released at three widely (MN, ME, FL) different locations on the same day during the migration are likely to be very different. There are seasonal differences in outcomes as well. 


What happens if O.e. infested adult monarchs are released into the population?


The dangers of O.e. are reasonably clear and infested monarchs should NOT be released at any time. Most of the heavily infested monarchs have a reduced fitness and a low probability of getting to Mexico, let alone returning in the spring. Given that scenario, it's likely that most of the O.e. spores that persist in the population through the winter have been acquired by healthy monarchs through horizontal transfer - that is, the proximity of healthy monarchs to those infested with spores while clustered during the winter or even through contact at roosts through the fall migration. The clear message in these directives is that rearing needs to be conducted in a way that eliminates the release of O.e. infested butterflies.         

Do tagged monarchs have a reduced chance of making it to Mexico?


Tagging may or may not have an impact on whether monarchs get to Mexico. There has never been a fair test. If tagged and wild monarchs of the same age, sex and size distributions were released at the same date and same place, we could determine whether tagging impacted the ability to get to Mexico. (Assuming also that the monarchs were tagged according to our instructions).

Tropical milkweed
Asclepias curassavica

What we do know is that lots of reared and tagged monarchs make it to Mexico some having fed on non-native milkweeds such as Calotropis procera and C. gigantea (both species of giant milkweed) and the much maligned Asclepias curassavica (tropical milkweed).
        
Irrespective of the potential impact of tagging, the data from reared monarchs is quite valuable. Like the data from wild tagged monarchs, it tells us a great deal about the migration - the timing, the pace and the probability of reaching Mexico based on sex, geographic origins and date of tagging.

Further, the recovery of reared monarchs can be used as a control for isotope studies.  


Given the habitat losses due to agricultural practices and the continuing loss of habitat, what should our priorities be if our goal is to sustain the monarch migration?


Habitat restoration has to be the number 1 priority. The "All hands on Deck" analysis indicated that we need to re-establish at least 1 BILLION milkweed stems mostly in the Upper Midwest to return the monarch numbers to an average of close to 6 hectares at the overwintering sites. That figure is based on an extinction analysis - that is, the probability of losing the migration due to a series of catastrophic events such as the winter storm of 2002 and 2004. That analysis was conservative in that the projections could only be made using past data and inferences based on those conditions. 

Unfortunately, conditions are changing and if the projections based on climate models come true, and that seems likely, the need to restore habitat is even greater than estimated. 

We have work to do and we need all hands on deck and that means that we need everyone who can to pitch in in any way they can. 

We need people to pass on their enthusiasm for monarchs and their concern for maintaining the migration.         


Should rearing be conducted with the goal of increasing the wild population?

Again, to be clear, at Monarch Watch we neither encourage nor discourage monarch rearing. Looking a the monarch population holistically - and from the standpoint of the year-to-year dynamics of a population that is governed largely by both temperatures, and other weather-related phenomena, as well as habitat limitations, rearing is a minor issue. 

_______________________________________ 

Orley R. "Chip" Taylor [chip@ku.edu]
Founder and Director of Monarch Watch; Professor Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.
Trained as an insect ecologist, Chip Taylor has published papers on species assemblages, hybridization, reproductive biology, population dynamics and plant demographics and pollination. Starting in 1974, Chip Taylor established research sites and directed students studying Neotropical African honey bees (killer bees) in French Guiana, Venezuela, and Mexico.

In 1992, Taylor founded Monarch Watch, an outreach program focused on education, research and conservation relative to monarch butterflies. Since then, Monarch Watch has enlisted the help of volunteers to tag monarchs during the fall migration. This program has produced many new insights into the dynamics of the monarch migration. 

In 2005 Monarch Watch created the Monarch Waystation program, in recognition that habitats for monarchs are declining at a rate of 6,000 acres a day in the United States. The goal of this program is to inspire the public, schools and others to create habitats for monarch butterflies and to assist Monarch Watch in educating the public about the decline in resources for monarchs, pollinators and all wildlife that share the same habitats.
 __________________

***I have formatted the information provided by Monarch Watch to make it easier to read and have provided some emphasis to some words and phrases. The text provided here is accurate, and is what Monarch Watch issued, with no other changes.
 

To Be or Not to Be? A Monarch Raiser, That Is.

Nothing like a good controversy to get your butt in gear and finally start blogging again. I never intended to stop, but life just kept getting in the way, and Facebook has made it easy to microblog. But now something has caused such an uproar in the monarch community and beyond, that... well... here we are.

A recent blog post written by someone from The Xerces Society has been making the rounds in the last few days. It's one that has a lot of people really upset and threatens to divide those of us who love the monarch and are doing our darnedest to help them have the population explosion they need.

Lots of people raise monarch butterflies in their homes, and teachers do it in their classrooms. This practice has gone on for decades, but never more than the present, in an effort to bolster the monarch population. But now, in light of this article published just four days ago, lots of people have vowed that they will quit raising monarchs.

Take a deep breath, friends.

Whenever an alarmist article like this appears, I'm skeptical until I can find other information supporting it. I don't care who writes it - scientist or not. If there's one thing I've discovered in the 12 years I've been studying the monarch, even the major players in the scientific community can't agree on some things. The fact is, there are a LOT of things we all have yet to learn about this iconic butterfly we love.

I could probably add another chapter to my book, THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly, on this subject, and certainly more than you want to read in a blog post. But here are some thoughts of mine to consider. It would be best if you read the Xerces Society blog post first, so that you understand what all the hubbub is about and why I say what I do here.

• First of all, we can't "save" the monarch by raising them inside our homes. There are good reasons to do so, but that alone should not be the rationale behind doing it. It's not sustainable over the long run, not at the levels we're collectively doing it now, and it's not natural. We haven't really saved anything if this is how we have to do it.
  
• Secondly, one of the biologists who co-authored the paper cited in the Xerces Society blog post, has come forth with a rebuttal and clarification of the talking points that have monarch lovers so upset. PLEASE read what Christopher Kline has to say about this. I can't stress this enough. Just read it.

This monarch caterpillar fell victim to
a spined soldier bug - a type of stink bug.

We raise monarchs in our homes mainly to protect them from predators. If you've observed monarchs for any length of time, you know firsthand how dismal their mortality rate is. That's not uncommon in the "eat or be eaten" world of insects. But monarch numbers are drastically down compared to just 20 years ago, for many reasons, mainly irresponsible behaviors by us humans.

So there may be something positive in humans taking it upon themselves to attempt to right a wrong that they committed in the first place. Is it natural or ideal to raise monarchs inside? No, but neither are pesticides, herbicides, urbanization, logging, mowing, and other practices that humans have done that have contributed to the monarch's decline.




An important thing to note when reading articles like the one from The Xerces Society

The Xerces Society raises some important points and things to think about. But their blog post is, for the most part, an opinion piece. So is mine.

Remember too, that The Xerces Society is one of the original writers of the petition to have the monarch added to the Threatened Species List under the Endangered Species Act. That decision is due to be announced in 2019, and the raising of monarchs will be greatly changed and curtailed if they are listed. The society certainly has a vested interest in the topic and this article may be speaking with that bias. 

Also, keep in mind that raising monarchs and breeding monarchs are two very distinctively different things. I have never bred monarchs and I don't advocate doing so. There are businesses that do this - some responsibly and some not - and I'm not talking about them here.

I also don't advocate raising huge numbers of them. Doing that requires an extraordinary amount of time, energy, space, and dedication. Not many of us are willing to do this in a way that avoids inherent problems.


Bottom line . . .

Please don't let yourself have a knee-jerk reaction to what the writer of The Xerces Society blog post has said. It might make sense to you right from the get-go, or it might cast doubts on what you've been doing in an effort to help the monarchs. In an ideal world, we wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. But people smarter than a lot of us (me included) have made some grave mistakes in the past and our wildlife has suffered and is suffering for it.

Personally, I'm of the same mind as Chris Kline, who is qualified to speak on the situation, and I'm perfectly comfortable in continuing to raise small numbers of monarchs in my home. You may not be, and I respect that.

If you save just one female who has the potential to lay
400+ eggs, you may or may not be making a positive difference.
Think about that exponentially for just a little bit

Lastly, thank you to those of you who are doing your part to help the monarchs and other pollinators, whether it be by growing a little milkweed (or a lot), growing more nectar plants, using fewer pesticides and herbicides, contributing financially to those who are working on the monarch's behalf, or even by just keeping the conversation going.

The monarchs have had a banner year here in the Midwest (yay!), which may or may not have had anything to do with our efforts, but keep up the good work. Maybe 20 years from now, we can look back and see that we're making a difference. I believe that we are.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kylee Baumle is the author of two books, the latest of which is THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly. She is a speaker and writer, who won a 2018 Gold Award for her writings on the monarch.

She will be leading her third tour to the monarch sanctuaries in Mexico in February 2019. For more information on joining the tour, click here. 

__________________________

***Photo of female monarch laying egg is courtesy of Holli Webb Hearn, creator of The Beautiful Monarch Facebook group, which at last count, has 23,396 members.

Listen to the Sounds of Monarch Butterfly Wings in the Cerro Pelon Reserve in Mexico!

I just learned of a project that allows you to hear sounds in various locations around the world. Called Locus Sonus, it is a French-based research network that focuses on the relationship between sound and space. It had its beginnings in 2005, and works in cooperation with several research labs throughout the world, including the School of the Art Institute (SAIC) in Chicago.

While I don't entirely understand their goal or purpose, what I do know is that they set up listening devices using open mics in places in order to capture their soundscape. Mainly an artistic endeavor, it relies on technology and science to operate.

Why am I interested in this? Because one of the locations where a microphone is located is in the Cerro Pelon monarch butterfly sanctuary in Michoacán, Mexico. By tuning in to this particular channel, you can hear the sounds of monarch butterfly wings, birds chirping, and wind through the trees in the location where the monarch butterflies were first found in their wintering location in 1975.

Click on graphic to enlarge soundmap. To go to the site, click here.

The listening map is located here and you can find the Cerro Pelon mic in Mexico and click on it. You'll want to have your sound turned up to its maximum level in order to hear the low level sounds.

The listening equipment is solar powered, so there will be times when no sound is being transmitted (at night, for example, which will be indicated by the darkened areas on the map) and the volume may vary. It's very new, so there will be times when equipment adjustments are being made. During those times, the microphone may not appear on the map. Check back later. It will be worth it!

Taking it all in at Sierra Chincua sanctuary, March 3rd, 2017.

Having been in a couple of the monarch sanctuaries myself, I can confirm that yes, it's very subtle, very quiet, which is the beauty in it, especially when you're in its midst. Just as in the actual location, you will not hear loud anything streaming through the microphone and you might be underwhelmed by what you hear. But make no mistake, you can hear those delicate wing flutters.

When the sun is out, the monarchs can be seen fluttering about, like
these, in El Rosario sanctuary on March 2nd, 2017.

Because the monarchs are much more active on sunny days, this will affect what you hear when listening in. If it's cloudy or rainy, you won't hear the sounds of butterfly wings, because the monarchs will be clustered together on the trees with very few, if any, flying around. So if you don't hear them at first try, go back and give it a listen on different days at different times. I got lucky and heard the wing flutters the first time I tuned in. 🦋

Enjoy!

Snow and Sun: A Simple Lesson in Physics

An early spring snow in April survives in shade, but even though the ambient temperature is 27°F, the sun is warm enough to melt it. Radiant heat – the kind the sun gives – heats objects. The grass and earth are warmed, causing the snow to melt. And you thought the sun heated the air, didn't you?

A Monarch Ecloses (feat. video)

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

Rabindranath Tagore

A little over two weeks ago, I was walking through the garden and happened to notice that a large-sized monarch caterpillar was munching on the butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa). I decided to take it inside our house so we could watch it become an adult butterfly. 

We've done this several times before, but it had been a few years. If you're one of those people who thinks it's wrong to interfere with Mother Nature this way, consider this: fewer than 5% of monarchs ever survive from egg to adulthood. Predators abound at every step of the way and in most cases, bringing them in at any stage and giving them proper care increases their chance of survival. (Emphasis on "proper care.")

A couple of days after I brought the caterpillar in, it went into the "J" formation...

...and later in the day, shed its skin for the fifth and final time, becoming an emerald green chrysalis.

Day 12:  You can begin to see the monarch's wings through the chrysalis.

A monarch caterpillar can take anywhere from 9-14 days, on average, to metamorphose into an adult butterfly and eclose (emerge from its chrysalis). Though I've seen the process in person several times, it never fails to thrill me to watch it again and again. And this time, I was hoping to video the eclosure.

On Day 15, I knew that "birth" was imminent, because the chrysalis had become completely clear and I could see signs of the butterfly pulling away from the inner walls. And then I noticed a vertical crack...

The video has some blurry parts, but overall I'm happy to have been able to capture the first moments in this monarch's life as a butterfly.

Watch "A Monarch Ecloses" on YouTube

Most monarchs eclose by noon, which gives them enough time for the wings to harden and for them to figure out whether they want to fly around or spend a cool night roosting in a shrub or tree. Since ours didn't eclose until 1:15, and it was to get down to 43° last night, we decided to keep Miss Monica in the upstairs bathroom until today.

It's a beautiful, calm, sunny 70° day here in northwest Ohio - much better for a fresh, young butterfly to take its first flight. Though there's enough time for her to mate and produce offspring that would migrate to Mexico - it takes 30 days from egg to adult - I think it's more likely that she will make the 2200-mile trip herself. 

Be well, Monica.  Safe travels.

Do You Know What Type of Soil You Have?

When I took Master Gardener classes a few years ago, we looked at soil maps that plotted the soil type in our county.  What I found fascinating is how accurate it was.  Romie and I had remarked once how you could dig a hole to plant a tree in one part of the yard and just 20 feet away, the soil was entirely different.  One was heavy, mucky clay, and the other was noticeably less sticky.

If you have clay soil, you'll recognize this!

A friend of mine shared a website earlier today on Facebook that looked intriguing, so I thought I'd share it with you. Kelly posted a link to FarmLogs, a website intended to be an aid to farmers, but we're farmers, right?  We grow food and other things that need soil.

When you enter your address, you'll see a satellite photo of your property.  Then you draw a line around the boundary of that property.  The site then shows you a "map" of the specific soil type for that land.  There's other helpful information given too, such as rainfall amounts for the last 24 hours, the last week, and the year-to-date.

Here's my soil map:

Our two types of soil are:

• Nappanee Silty Clay Loam -  The Nappanee series consists of very deep, somewhat poorly drained soils that are moderately deep or deep to dense till. They formed in clayey till on wave-worked till plains, till-floored lake plains, till plains, and moraines.
• Hoytville Silty Clay - The Hoytville series consists of very deep, very poorly drained soils that are deep or very deep to dense till. They formed in till that has been leveled by wave action and are on lake plains.

Yes, that's right - clay soil that doesn't drain very well.  I didn't need a soil map to tell me that, but it's still interesting all the same!

What Is Hoar Frost?

We awoke yesterday morning to a true winter wonderland. Hoar frost everywhere, sun shining, perfect deep blue sky, and a temperature of 5° F. Brrr! I was conflicted. The beauty outside was calling loudly for me to grab my camera and join in on the fun, but I hate being cold - HATE IT - so my warm house won the argument.

But I did take a couple of photos from inside the house before the breezes started blowing the hoar frost off. I wish I could have gotten an image of THAT. It was like diamond dust floating down.

What is hoar frost anyway? I've been asked that before and it's easy to understand, really. When heavy, humid air is warmer than the surfaces it comes into contact with, and the temperature of those objects is below freezing, the moisture freezes on contact.

The humidity Sunday morning was 80% and with the temperature being as cold as it was, surfaces were pretty cold. Usually, there's fog along with the hoar frost, but this time there was only a slight amount of fog.

There is a similar frost, called rime, which is formed only on the edges of objects, including leaves, when a moist wind blows across objects and freezes to them. This only occurs when the temperature is very low. If you look at this close-up photo of our burning bush (Euonymus alatus), it looks like this might be rime, because the frost has formed in a single direction, but at the time the frost formed, there was no wind.

From a distance, it would be difficult to tell the difference between the two, and it doesn't really matter much - they're both beautiful.

We Are Not Alone...

"The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious."

~General Nathan Twining

I just don't know. All this talk of aliens and stuff. I'm a believer that God created everything but I am also a firm believer that we cannot possibly ever discover everything that He created. I don't even think that's entirely necessary, and gee...we have to have something to always be on the quest for, right? We'd get bored if there wasn't.

My world is big and yet small, all at the same time. Heck, my garden alone is tiny in comparison to all there is in the world for me to discover, yet I'll never quite know or understand everything that goes on even in our little acre. Take something that's happening right this minute, for instance.

Let me back up a little bit...

A couple of weeks ago, I harvested some of the spinach that I planted early in September, or maybe it was late in August. I don't remember. But Romie told me it was good and since I never got to taste that first bit of it, and we were having some pretty nice fall weather, I decided to try planting another crop.

Looks good, doesn't it? Romie assured me it was.

I remember the winter of 2005-2006 and the spinach that never did die. We had green spinach that entire winter.  I'd just clear away the snow and there it was, crisp and fresh as ever. This time, I decided to order a frost cover from Gardener's Supply for extra protection and it came yesterday.

I took it out to the garden to cover the area where I planted the spinach, and that's when I saw "it."

The chain link fencing was laid over the planted area so the cats wouldn't dig in it.

Just what "it" was...well...that was up for debate and what better place to debate it than on Twitter. You can find out anything on Twitter. For real! Just type the question (in 140 characters or less) and let it fly. Someone will have the answer. It might not be the right one, but it sure will give you some food for thought.

So, I asked:

@ourlittleacre: WHAT on earth is this gel-like goop that formed over the rows of spinach seeds I planted?

And I immediately got responses:

@gardenfix: Hollandaise sauce?
@gabbygardener: creepy...
@MulchMaven: gel-like goop on spinach seeds? Sounds like a Wednesday post to me! ;-)
@CB4wildlife: my only thought is Praying Mantis. I watched one lay its eggs today, but that is more "foam like".  That is NOT praying mantis, that's for sure LOL
@marykir: do you use that water absorbing gel? I get stuff like that in my boxes when it rains a lot. Usually not so opaque though.

No.


@gabbygardener: OK I am guessing, It may seed coat gel, with cooler weather is not breaking down and it is gathering at the soil surface.
@TheresaLoe: Perhaps a fungus?
@AboutInsects: Hmm. Looks to me like fruiting bodies of some kind of fungus, maybe a jelly fungus. What's it feel like? Quick to appear?


It feels like a gel, with a fair amount of body. It began appearing yesterday.


@gardenfix:  I think it might be slime mold. http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/FactSheets/slimemold/slimemold.htm Fact sheet says it grows pretty quickly under moist conditions.
@AboutInsects: I'm assuming you didn't use any water retention gel beads, or potting soil with moisture control, right?

Right.


@bwisegardening: I'm thinking alien invasion...

Hmmm...


@AboutInsects: This is kind of fun. Video from Scotland about trying to ID white jelly blobs on soil. http://bbc.in/bpC3Ow
@gardenfix: You're not alone in being puzzled. See this -- it's just like yours: http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/outdoors/articles/jelly/

Great minds think alike. (And use Google.)


@AboutInsects: Actually, look up "star jelly"

So, I did.

Star jelly (also called astromyxin, astral jelly, pwdr sêr, star rot, or star shot) is a gelatinous substance, which, according to folklore, is deposited on the earth during meteor showers. (Wikipedia)

@AboutInsects: Might try taking a sample to local extension office. May need a good microscope to confirm.


Somewhere around this point, the conversation started to deteriorate while at the same time making great progress, and the late night crew came to the conclusion that it was alien snot. Yep, sure looks like snot to me.

I was then urged to share this information with the rest of the internet. I mean, what if someone else has this in their garden and they need to know what it is, too? We've just saved them all that trouble of coming to the logical conclusion that highly trained tweeters took nearly an hour to figure out.

But @gardenfix, bless her heart, just wouldn't be satisfied and was still on the trail...

@gardenfix: Here's something that suggests it might be a jelly fungus: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngawangchodron/257046365/

...and @herbgardens and @nwheat chimed in with votes for slime mold and fungus.@gabbygardener stuck with her original theory of it being the natural seed coat congealing.

Alien snot got the most votes, so all day today, I was satisfied with the idea that I had alien snot in my garden. After all, we had some crop circles near here several years ago, so alien visits were nothing new. And surely it's organic, right? Perhaps it will be the perfect soil conditioner for the tough clay we have here. Maybe it's a super fertilizer and we'll have a bumper crop of spinach. In December. Or it could be that miracle ingredient that allows certain types of spinach to grow when there's snow! All thanks to aliens. Who knew?

But the story wasn't over. No sirree. I'd also posted a photo of it on my Our Little Acre Facebook page and it was there that my dreams of being visited by aliens and having them deposit precious bodily fluids on my garden like fairy dust were dashed.

My friend Joseph - Super Garden Brain College Student Joseph - shared some information:
 

@Joseph Tychonievich: Quoting from "The effect of excess moisture on the germination of Spinacia oleracea" by Walter Heydecker and P.I. Orphanos:

"...the fruit coat [of spinach] becomes mucilaginous within little more than an hour of contact with an excess of water"

It is actually pretty common for seeds to exude slime -- some basils, and almost all salvias do lots of it. It is variously theorized to prevent seeds from drying out, inhibit germination under excessively wet conditions, or keep things from eating the seeds.

Since the gel is in a line directly over where the seeds are planted, I would say this is exactly what is going on. @gabbygardener said this from the start. And while I find this to be very cool, although strange, I kind of liked it better when we believed it to be alien snot.

May the force be with us all.

What Will Happen to the Native Flora?

Many of you know my thoughts on climate change. We obviously are experiencing changes and whether or not it is warming permanently, extremes are driving gardeners crazy. I doubt we can do anything to change things, so we'd better adapt. This got me thinking about our native plants.

Silene virginica

Will they stay and do what they need to, to survive, or will their native range simply change?

Discuss, please. 

Trillium grandiflorum

GWA Region III Meeting in Cincinnati

I've put off blogging about my two-day trip to Cincinnati last week for the GWA Region III Meeting and Cincinnati Flower Show, because I hardly know where to start to recount all the fun Mom and I had.  Not kidding either.  It almost reminded me of the time that I went on our older daughter's 8th grade trip to Washington, D.C.  Not a wasted moment!

The meeting was held at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens, which was an excellent choice of venues.  After visiting the Toledo Zoo a few weeks ago with my Master Gardener class, and now this one, I'm beginning to think that zoos are a well-kept secret when it comes to horticulture.

We had a pizza and salad lunch to start out, and I spent most of my time renewing friendships with those I'd met before (Carol of May Dreams Gardens and Carolee of Carolee's Herb Farm), meeting friends I'd made on Twitter and Facebook (Patty Craft from Horticulture Magazine, Maria Zampini from Lake County Nursery, and Stacy Walters from The Good Life With Stacy), and chatting with all the other wonderful people that were in attendance.

After we got our tummies full, we embarked on a short tour of some of the zoo's horticulture facilities, namely the CREW (Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife) building, where research takes place. It is a state-of-the-art facility devoted to the preservation of endangered animals and plants.

One of the goals of the center is to propagate and reintroduce endangered species so as to preserve them and increase their population in the wild. One of the plants they are actively working on is the Northern Wild Monkshood (Aconitum noveboracense), growing near Akron, Ohio.

 

The zoo has a large rain garden which contains a number of native plant species.

 Rain garden

As we walked the zoo grounds, only occasionally were we reminded that we were in a zoo, since we were so focused on the horticultural treasures here. Though we didn't get to see the thousands of tulips in all their glory, due to the early spring, there were enough blooming that the display was still impressive.

Tulipa 'Monsella'

After the short zoo tour, we drove to Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum, where we took a short walking tour. In addition to many famous people being interred here, it is home to 21 state champion trees and 2 national champion trees.

State Champion Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani)

 Cornus florida 'Spring Grove'

Look at the size of its blooms!

We returned to the zoo for dinner, where we were privileged to hear two speakers: Brian Jorg, who spoke to us about spring wildflowers (a favorite topic of mine!) and Steve Foltz from PlantPlaces.com, which is a database of the location of specific plants, including trees.  On this website, you can see photos as well as find the location of the actual plant, as the GPS coordinates are included in the listing.

The meal was wonderful and the chocolate lava cake dessert really hit the spot. But the pièce de résistance (for me, anyway) was when the lovely Patty Craft drew names for the gifts provided by the sponsors.  There were t-shirts, planter boxes, color wheels, and two gift certificates for plant samples from Proven Winners for next spring, among other things.

Guess whose name was drawn for one of the Proven Winners certificates?

The garden writers were also gifted with wonderful swag bags containing books from Timber Press, plants and idea books from Proven Winners, plants from Lake County Selections, gloves from Womans' Work, a certificate for plant samples from Blooms of Bressingham, seeds from Natorp's (a local independent garden center), a nylon bag, hat and magazines from Horticulture Magazine, and many informational tidbits.

I'll be blogging about the second day of the meeting, too. Yes! There's more! The Cincinnati Nature Center, Bill Lee's Garden, Beth Karp's garden, and of course, the Cincinnati Flower Show. Stay tuned!

Thank you to those who made all of this possible - the sponsors, the GWA, the Cincinnati Zoo, Spring Grove Cemetery, and the Cincinnati Flower Show. I hope I didn't miss anyone!

More photos from Day I of the GWA Region III Meeting

The Great Backyard Bird Count

We've got several bird feeders placed right outside our family room windows so we can watch the birds eat there.  It's fun to see them any time of the year, but none more than in winter.  Personally, I think it's a minor miracle that any of them can survive out there in the frigid temperatures and raging snowstorms we've been known to have.

Some of the more common birds we see here in winter are various kinds of sparrows, goldfinches, house finches, mourning doves, cardinals, blue jays and starlings.  This winter, the starlings have been mostly absent and I can't say that I miss them a whole lot. They're feeder hogs and the other birds don't like to share perches with them.

Other species that we see on a fairly regular basis are several woodpeckers, dark-eyed juncos, white-breasted nuthatches, and black-capped chickadees.  Occasionally, a robin will show up.  My mom and dad, who live just 13 miles from us, have robins in great numbers each winter.

For the next four days (February 12-15), we'll be participating for the first time in a yearly event called The Great Backyard Bird Count.  Simply put, we'll be counting the number of each species of bird that we see during a selected period of time each day.  How long we want to keep track is up to us, with a minimum time of 15 minutes each day.

For more information, visit the official website, where you'll find everything you need to know about participating in this fun winter activity.  You may be surprised by which birds you'll see and you'll be contributing to research that helps identify bird migration patterns, irruptions, and the effect weather has on birds during a given year.  The more people that participate in the count, the more accurate the data.

*Join in the fun and count your birds! If you do participate in The Great Backyard Bird Count, I invite you to blog about it and send me a link to your post.  I'll do a follow-up post on it when the count is over and list the link to your blog here!