Excited For Aphids

Every year without fail, some of the leaves on my River Birch change, becoming weirdly distorted and deformed.

This leaf distortion is actually caused by aphids - Spiny Witch Hazel Gall Aphids, to be exact - which feed on birch leaves starting in the spring and then eventually move on to Witch Hazel trees for the second part of its life cycle.  The infested birch leaves ultimately shrivel up and fall off the tree prematurely.

So it's a bad thing for your tree to be attacked by aphids every year, right?

Surprisingly, it can actually be a great thing!  The infestation of aphids is usually not heavy enough to harm the health of the tree.  It does, however, attract all sorts of beneficial predators to the garden.

The infected birch is like a magnet for ladybugs.  There are always a lot of them on my tree.  They eat the aphids and lay their eggs there.  The larvae that hatch eat even more aphids and eventually turn into even more ladybugs for the garden.

ladybug larvae eating aphids on birch leaf

Other interesting insects attracted by the aphids include this Tree Cricket nymph. Tree crickets and their nymphs love aphids and scale insects and can be beneficial to a garden (though they can occasionally become a pest for orchards as they also like fruit).

Tree Cricket nymph on birch leaf

Believe it or not, there are actually beneficial wasps to have in the garden, such as this little Mason Wasp.  They prey on many larval insects including aphids and are non-agressive and rarely sting.

 My favorite things that are attracted by the aphids, however, are the birds.

Baltimore Oriole

Most of the birds that I see eating aphids on the tree are ones that I see commonly at my nearby bird feeders.  The Baltimore Orioles, though, have never come to a feeder (despite my attempts).  I only see these beautiful birds up close when they come for the aphids.

It makes you almost want an aphid infestation, doesn't it?

How to Make a Vertical Pallet Garden for Shade

This spring when I came home with a bunch of free leftover shade plants after working at our garden club's annual plant sale, I knew just what I wanted to do.

shady pallet garden!

We've had a stack of pallets sitting in our basement, and I've been toying with the idea of making a pallet garden out of one for awhile.  We had a bare wall by our patio that really could use some livening up, and a pallet garden was perfect.  Now that I had the plants, it was time!

Here is what I did to make my pallet garden:

Step 1:  Painting.

I chose to spray paint the pallet black, since I really wanted to showcase the plants.

I only wanted four rows of plants (no plants on the very bottom), and I wanted to be able to put taller plants in my pallet garden, so this pallet that I had was perfect.  (If you want to recreate this garden and your pallet has too many boards on the front, you will need to pry some of the boards off.)

Step 2:  Make pockets for the soil and plants.

I made 8 pockets in total, since there's a board running through the middle of the pallet, and I made them out of landscaping fabric.  For each pocket, I cut the landscaping fabric slightly longer than the pocket would end up.

I then folded the landscaping fabric up so that the pockets would be a double thickness of fabric.  I then folded it up in half again (same way) to make a double-thick pocket.

I then stapled most of the way down each side.

To give the pocket more of a bottom, I then flattened the bottom part and stapled it flat on each side, like so:

Thus the bottom should make a 'Y' shape, and each side of your pocket should end up looking like this:

the bottom of the pocket

Now for the magic: turn the pocket inside out (or should I say 'right side out'?)

making a pocket for a pallet garden

Tada!  It should look like a (double-thick) pocket now.

Step 3:  Stuff the pockets inside the pallet and staple them all around the inside with a staple gun.

(This is easier said than done, as it takes a loooot of stapling.  You want those pockets secure!)

Step 4: Fill with dirt and plant!

My pallet garden is leaning against the wall on the north side of my house, and it is also under a deck, so I used plants that would do well in the shade.  I used the plants I happen to have, which included: white and red Wax Begonias, Astilbe, Variegated Solomon's Seal, Epimediums, golden Creeping Jenny, golden Japanese Forest Grass, and a couple ferns that I scrounged from my shade garden.

I have to thank my mother-in-law for giving me a whole tray of Wax Begonias that she had bought and didn't need, as they really add great pops of color in the pallet garden.

I'm so happy with how it turned out!  We'll see how it ages through the summer.  I'm really hoping to overwinter some of the perennials for next year, too, so we'll see how that goes.

Happy gardening!

Fourth of July

Happy Independence Day!