By Susan Harkins and Paula Mullins

It’s that time of year, and you’re in luck if a gardener is on your gift list. If you’re the gardener, send a link to this article to all of you secret Santas!

Passionate gardeners are probably the easiest people to please. If you’re close, you might already know that they’re searching for a specific orchid or drooling over a new set of shiny loppers. On the other hand, if you’re not sure, we can help.

Close to the holidays, you can purchase traditional holiday plants most anywhere. Amaryllis, paperwhites, and holiday cacti will show up everywhere and they’re affordable. They’re not natives, and not all gardeners are keen on house plants; if they don’t have any, skip this suggestion.

Tools are personal, but a gardener can almost always use a new set of good hand pruners, a hori knife, or a good pruning saw. A gardener can never have too many pairs of gardening shears, and they come in all sizes. If your gardening friend tends to lose tools (I know I do), a tool apron might be high on their list. It should have lots of pockets in different widths and lengths to corral they’re favorite hand tools.

A vase or planter might be just the ticket. Like tools, a gardener can never have too many. For that reason, make sure it’s spectacular or unusual in some way. They probably have tons of normal vases and planters already.

As odd as it might sound, you might hook up with a local farmer and purchase compost to be delivered in early spring. Then, help your gardening friend spread it—helping is as important as the purchase.

If your gardener is a little older, consider a new gardening cart to replace their awkward wheelbarrow. Gorilla carts are durable, easy to handle, and they come in more than one size! An easy-to-handle, flexible, lightweight gardening hose of at least 100 feet would be great. I love my bench that provides comfort whether I’m kneeling or sitting, and the handles help me get up and down.

For the reader, consider a number of gardening books: Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada, by William Cullina; Gardening for the Birds, by Thomas G. Barnes; Kentucky’s Last Great Places by Thomas G. Barnes, Plant Life of Kentucky by Ronald L. Jones (this is for the studious gardener); Trees & Shrubs of Kentucky by Mary E. Wharton and Roger W. Barbour, Edible Wild Plants by John Kallas, PhD; Wildflowers and Ferns of Kentucky by Thomas G. Barnes and S. Wilson Francis; Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy; The Living Landscape by Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy; and many more.

A small pop-up greenhouse would be a certain winner, especially if you offer to help put it together! They come in a variety of sizes and prices. Make sure your friend has space for it before you make the purchase.

If you’re feeling especially generous, a potter’s table would be a huge surprise and a certain hit! Before you purchase anything, size up their surroundings: Do they really have room for one? If it needs to stay outside, purchase something durable, such as resin or stainless steel. They come in lots of sizes with different amenities, so you’ll have lots of choices.

Most gardeners love nature in general, so anything in that vein is a good bet. A membership to a nearby private garden or arboretum will be well-received. In our area, we have Yew Dell Gardens and the Waterfront Botanical Gardens, both in Louisville. The Arboretum in Lexington is public, so a membership isn’t necessary. However, if your gardening friend has everything already, you might consider a donation in their name.

A pretty water feature is always nice, especially if you help with (or pay for) installation. Garden art is iffy—it’s personal, but if you know the gardener well, you can probably pull it off.

If you still can’t decide, consider a gift card they can use to purchase a squirrel-proof bird feeder that really works, seed packets, tools, mulch, bulbs, nursery plants, and so on. Consider a gift card to a native nursery, such as Ironweed Native Plant Nursery in Columbia Kentucky or Dropseed Native Plant Nursery in Goshen (neither uses pesticides or sell plants treated with neonicotinoids.)

You might not have to spend any money at all. A hand-made coupon and a sincere promise to return in the spring and help your gardening friend put in a new bed, spread mulch, or just clean up the winter mess would be a gift from the heart that your gardening friend will never forget. I think I’m adding this one to my own list!

Finally, for the native-loving gardener who has everything, consider a KNPS membership or some branded gear. For information about memberships, read https://www.knps.org/membership/. You can browse the KNPS Gear Shop for KNPS branded gear. You can’t go wrong with either!

This article was originally published by the Franklin County Hort Newletter, but has been adapted for native plant lovers.

Paula Mullins and Susan Harkins are master gardeners with the Frankfort area group, Capital Area Master Gardeners. This group services Franklin, Anderson, and Woodford County.

By Susan Harkins

You worked hard turning some of your property into wildlife habitat. You planted nectar and host plants for butterflies and pollinators. Trees and bushes offer shelter and habitat for birds, squirrels, and other small creatures. Perhaps this summer, a box turtle took up residence in your back yard or you heard tree frogs singing in your own trees! Now, after all your hard work, why would you destroy that wonderful ecosystem by cleaning it up for winter?

This time of year, experts encourage us to clean up and cut down. That is the right way to manage a manicured golf-course landscape; but it’s the wrong way to treat the property you’ve cultivated as wildlife habitat. Think about it; does Mother Nature rake leaves and cut down dried seed heads? No. Dying plant matter provides food and shelter for insects and animals throughout the winter, and to complete the lifecycle, decaying matter amends the soil—free fertilizer!

First, let’s talk about not raking leaves. Leaf litter is a microecosystem all its own. It’s full of eggs, larvae, pupae, and thriving insects. Bag up the leaves and they’re gone—an entire little ecosystem is gone. You invited all those beneficial insects into your yard. If you want to keep them there, don’t destroy their home and kill their offspring! Instead, allow leaves to lay where they fall. Only remove leaves from areas you must. A foot of leaves can be  as detrimental to that thriving community as no leaves at all. In addition, wet slippery leaves are hazardous. Find balance between being a responsible homeowner and supporting the living community underneath those leaves.

Next up is your wildflowers. They’re looking shabby this time of year, but fight the urge to cut them back. Birds and other creatures depend on seeds and dried leaves for food. Many insects overwinter in dried stems. And honestly, what looks a tad shabby right now will look spectacular surrounded by a blanket of snow. I plant river oats because those glistening seeds bowing over a blanket of bright snow are beautiful. If you want to clean up your front yard a bit, that’s understandable, but don’t throw out the debris. Pile it up in an out-of-the way corner and let nature take care of it while it provides shelter throughout the winter.

Experts tell us that a messy winter garden encourages disease, and they’re right. Please don’t apply this messy strategy to your vegetable garden plots or your precious cultivars, such as roses. Some of your landscape will always require special care. However, in those areas that you purposely turned over to nature, continue to let nature take the lead.

Butterflies, native bees and pollinators, and other beneficial insects need a safe place to hibernate over winter. Birds and other small creatures need shelter and food. Truly wild places are in decline, so your yard matters. Every yard matters. Leave your wildlife habitat messy, and let nature do what it does best in a healthy balanced system.

This article was originally published in the Franklin County Horticulture newsletter.

by Nick Koenig

As the first day of Winter has passed, the growing season has concluded in the Commonwealth. This may appear to be time for native plant enthusiast to close up shop until the beloved Spring ephemerals make their appearance in March. However, the Kentucky landscape provides plant lovers with many opportunities to botanize during these colder months, and I hope to share some of the groups you can learn as well as the resources I would recommend! While winter identification will be a bit more esoteric than having leaves and flowers at one’s disposal, it is a challenge I encourage everyone to take a jab at.

If there’s wood… there’s a bud!

From the largest of tress to the smallest of vines, if a plant has wood, then this necessitates a bud to protect next year’s leaves. While buds are smaller and look more similar to one another than flowers and leaves, they can give great clues to what species you might be looking at. Sometimes the buds can be more trustworthy than leaves as well!

Photo Credit: Virginia Tech Dendrology Fact Sheet – Acer Rubrum

Photo Credit: Virginia Tech Dendrology Fact Sheet – Liriodendron tulipifera

Pictured on the left is Red Maple (Acer rubrum) and on the right is Kentucky’s state tree the Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) both displaying their buds awaiting a botanist’s identification!

Evergreen

An obvious choice is to look for species that keep their leaves all year. This can range from ferns (see below) and gymnosperms (Pines and Spruces) to the angiosperms (like American Holly). While there will not be as many species to identify during the winter that have their leaves on display when compared to the summer months, there are still some species to appreciate.

Pictured is the Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) which can be found year-round.

Mosses

I usually find the mosses to be the most challenging group of plant life to tackle, but, alas, the mosses do provide plant lovers to pursue their quest to learn what mother nature holds in store for us.

Resources

Below is one app and two books that can help with you winter botanical adventures:

iNaturalist App

This is a great resource for getting an identifier in the ballpark. The app may not do too well with pictures of buds especially if the pictures are not of the best quality, but it is worth a try. If you need instructions on how to use the app, check out the following Lady Slipper article from a previous issue: iNaturalist Tutorial

Woody Plants of Kentucky and Tennessee—The Completed Winter Guide to Their Identification and Use by Jones and Wofford

Commonly called “Woody,” this book has a dichotomous key and a great set of colored pictures in the back.

Common Mosses of the Northeast and Appalachians by McKnight et al.

A great resource for moss identification for our area. Mosses are difficult to identify so this book may only help you get to family or genus, but some you might be able to get to species!

Hello KNPS members! I am writing to encourage you to become a part of the editorial. We are all volunteers and could use your help in many ways. From checking for grammar to writing submissions, you can be involved in the smallest to the largest of ways. Even if you can only help for 15 minutes a month, your involvement in the Lady Slipper would be extremely beneficial! If you would like to join, have any questions, or have an article idea, please email ladyslipper@knps.org. Thank you!