Cup of gold

 Silphium perfoliatum, our native cup plant, is no shrinking violet. Native to fields, prairies, roadsides, and ditches, this enthusiastic yellow composite can reach heights of ten feet, making it one of Ohio's most striking wildflowers. As tough as it is beautiful, the specimen in my old yard survived at least two years heeled in in a pot much too small for its root system, the gnarled result having to be cut out of its broken container when I finally got around to planting it (hence my Wildlife Gardeners title of "Official Silphium Abuser"). The clump below survived by pushing its way through the solarization plastic on the slope intended to house Phase Two of the Fort Street Pollinator Habitat. (In our volunteers' defense, we got the site in November, when the silphium had already collapsed into a mass of dried stems, so we did not know what a treasure we had.)

While this particular yellow daisy can be a bit much for some tastes and is, admittedly, not well-suited to a small urban garden, it is a fabulous wildlife plant. The common name refers to the "cup" formed by the leaves growing from the stem, which is a drinking water source for small birds after a rain.

Goldfinches seem as fond of cup plant seeds as they are those of its cousin, the annual sunflower, and this beauty comes back on its own every year. It is a favorite pollen source for bees, 

and some species of leafcutter bees nest in the hollow stems that remain at the end of the growing season. It also serves as a larval host for some moth species.

Besides, cup plant is attractive in all stages of growth. The leaves are lush, the blossoms are undeniably impressive, and the buds and opening blooms are just plain fun.

Yes, we're going to have to keep an eye on our golden Silphiums to be sure they don't take up too much room, but we suspect the Joe-Pye weed going in this fall will be able to hold its own.

Small things

     This is hardly optimal wildlife habitat,

being a roughly 15x20-foot patch bordered by two sidewalks, a driveway, and a fairly busy street. Of course, being a plant nerd, I pack a lot into the space,

including things that probably shouldn't grow there, like Joe-Pye weed, which I do at least whack it to keep it short(ish). But how can any garden not welcome any plant that does this?

Joe is such a sociable plant.

    My little space attracts all the usuals--skippers, swallowtails, fritillaries, crescents, bees, predatory wasps, the occasional monarch--but things new-to-me have also been known to visit. These swamp milkweed beetles were getting a bit frisky on the whorled milkweed.

And this spotted thyris moth was like nothing I had ever seen before.

All this adult insect activity indicates that larval hosts must be somewhere nearby, and they are. My little patch sits across the street from the city arboretum, home to oaks, maples, and tulip poplars more than fifty feet tall, along with younger specimens of a good many species. All those native trees, coupled with the "enthusiastic" planting on my corner, provide homes for a lot of "the little things that run the world," as Half-Earth Project founder E. O. Wilson describes insects.

    And all those insects provide a lot of bird food. The species nesting in the trees on our perhaps-tenth-acre lot include robins, chickadees, titmice, wrens, cardinals, and at least two kinds of sparrows. The dozens of trees in our block of the arboretum provide homes for others, not to mention a sizable population of squirrels. The red-shouldered hawks that make their home less than a block away seem to be finding plenty of food, as do the bats, swallows, and nighthawks that come out at dusk. The number of adult fireflies lighting up the neighborhood are an indication that their carnivorous larvae are eating something. 

    This area is not pristine wilderness, but it is definitely habitat. Small spaces can provide food and shelter for a myriad of small creatures, and those small creatures make up a big part of our shared world.