June Photo Winner!

Congratulations to Kerry, with a beautiful picture of a friend on a log staying cool in the heat!

Remember, if you submit by the end of the month you can win $25 off your next Birch Meadow visit! Just email your photo to shannon@birchmeadowgc.com. 

Details about the contest, is in our January newsletter.

Supply Drive for NC Farm Workers

This heat lately has been brutal on all of us, but becomes especially dangerous for those of us who work outdoors. While Birch Meadow works closely with us out in the field to ensure our safety, that level of care is often denied to the most marginalized and vulnerable of workers. For immigrant farm workers this is especially true. Some farm supervisors are especially negligent and deny their workers enough food or water throughout the day despite the fact that these workers do the labor necessary to keep our food systems running.  Our farm workers often cannot afford to buy the same food they spend long hours picking and processing.

Last year in North Carolina, 30-year-old José Arturo González Mendoza warned his supervisor that he was not feeling well, but the supervisors did not pay attention.  According to the North Carolina Department of Labor (NC DoL), while harvesting sweet potatoes in direct sunlight González  began to show clear signs of heat exhaustion: confusion, fatigue, and loss of consciousness. Managers never called for medical help or provided first aid when those symptoms began, and an employee finally called 911 about 50 minutes after González started showing the first signs of a medical emergency. The NCDoL ultimately fined Barnes Farming Corporation $187,509 for their negligence and determined his death was due to their harsh working conditions exacerbated by the extreme heat.

This example unfortunately is one of many preventable deaths that happen due to farm supervisors not providing adequate food, water, rest time, and ignoring symptoms of heat related illnesses. There are currently neither state nor federal laws in effect that would require breaks or other heat-related safety measures for outdoor workers despite our summers getting hotter and hotter. Some people, like the labor org anizers at El Futuro es Nuestro, in North Carolina are organizing for positive change by fighting for their rights as farm workers.  If you would like to support them, El Futuro es Nuestro (It’s Our Future) is currently running a supply drive. 

Until July 12, you can drop off much needed materials for heat safety kits to Rosenau Hall (Chapel Hill), Regulator Bookshop (Durham), and Golden Fig Books (Carrboro). They are asking for reusable ice packs, ibuprofen, bandanas, and powdered electrolyte packets. If you cannot make it out to any of these locations, you can donate money directly to El Futuro Es Nuestro at this link, or email Kel (kellm@birchmeadowgc.com) to coordinate a pickup. Spread the word! Tell  your friends or share on social media! ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

- Kel

Let’s Phase Out Our Lawns!

During the 1700s, landscape designers in England and France popularized the lawn: a closely cut, manicured area of the garden. These spaces were only available to the bourgeoisie however as the maintenance required was astronomical, and the “lawn mowers” available were either livestock or scythe-wielding servants. In 1806 U.S. President Thomas Jefferson became the first American aristocrat to replicate a lawn at his estate, Monticello, where he exploited the over 600 men, women, and children he enslaved to create America’s first lawn. Lawns thus began as a sign of extreme wealth where the bourgeoisie could show that they had so much money they could afford to not use their land for cultivation of food. The abolition of open and/or legal sanctioned slavery following the Civil War motivated the invention of the first lawn mower in 1868 since wealthy Americans no longer had enslaved people to mow their lawns for them. Over the following decades and into the early 1900s,  lawns became increasingly accessible to the average American as the U.S. Department of Agriculture developed and funded programs to bring lawns to the average American. By the time the American suburbs began to boom in the 1950s and 1960s, the American obsession with lawns was in full swing.

Lawns might be a nice place for your kids and pets to run around in, but they are environmentally unsustainable. A lawns’ lack of diversity harms local ecosystems since local flora and fauna have evolved to live in environments with diverse plant life. Our human food systems are dependent on pollination by insects, but a lawn full of nonnative turf grasses and weeds is not enough to support those populations who require a wide variety of pollinator plants to sustain their declining populations. Even weedy lawns that are allowed to flower lack the deep root systems of the Piedmont’s native grasses that help with things like stormwater management. 

Reducing the amount of lawn in your yard and replacing it with native plants is one of the most impactful things we can do as individuals to better our local ecosystems. When it comes to birds alone (excluding seabirds), 96% of all North American bird species feed insects to their young, and yards that have more natural cover with native plants provide a much better habitat for foraging birds. Why maintain a lawn—a relic of aristocratic Europe that was brought to the Americas using the labor of enslaved people—when you could have a lush, native garden that requires less water than a lawn, offers a safe haven for all sorts of wildlife, and is not boring, flat, and dead in the heat of the summer? 

• Kel

Side Note: At our house, we had an acre of lawn and little else when we first moved in.  An acre of native species garden is an awful lot to start and maintain so I started by planting fruit trees around the outer edges of our backyard and adding native species here and there when I had time.  Time is the issue.  I’ve never had enough time to keep anything close to an ideal garden according to current expectations, but because of that lack of time, I’ve discovered something wonderful. Nature is still alive and eager to step in where I can’t.  Baby box turtles have hatched somewhere in our yard and show up when I least expect them.  Frogs and toads abound.  The birds keep bringing in wildflower seeds.  Some of my favorites have been Saint John’s wort, Lady’s Tresses, and Passionflower.  We realize that giving up on mowing an entire acre would look like an overwhelming disaster to anyone who isn’t used to it so this year we decided to change how we mow.  Instead of mowing the whole acre, we mow the outside perimeter, areas where we would like to gather regularly, like the fire pit and paths between regularly visited spots.  The change has transformed our yard yet again.  There are more fireflies at night and pollinators and predatory insects during the day.  Looking out at the tall grasses blowing in the wind is a delight.  The birdsong from the back porch is so loud that it sometimes interrupts phone calls! Every day brings a new discovery.  We plan to mow the whole thing down to the ground every fall to prevent scrub trees from growing and start seeding it with a native species seed mix.  I am excited to see what it surprises us with next!

• Mary Beth

Karla’s Trip to the Chelsea Flower Show!

Karla attended the RHS Chelsea Flower show in May in London, England. It is the most renowned of a series of flower shows that happen in the UK every year. It features a series of show gardens, which are judged and various other garden displays. A new addition in the past couple of years is the house plant studios. The Main Pavillion hosts various growers who are experts in their fields, some of these displays are also judged. I was particularly charmed by the alliums, which I am struggling to grow in my garden (I think it is becoming too hot in NC for them).

Yes, I put one of those maidenhairs in my suitcase!

- Karla

Here are some photos of things that inspired me…

Container Combinations:

Planting Patterns:

Fashionable Flower Folk:

From a review in the UNC Press:

“The American South is famous for its astonishingly rich biodiversity. In this book, Georgann Eubanks takes a wondrous trek from Alabama to North Carolina to search out native plants that are endangered and wavering on the edge of erasure. Even as she reveals the intricate beauty and biology of the South's plant life, she also shows how local development and global climate change are threatening many species, some of which have been graduated to the federal list of endangered species.

Why should we care, Eubanks asks, about North Carolina's Yadkin River goldenrod, found only in one place on earth? Or the Alabama canebrake pitcher plant, a carnivorous marvel being decimated by criminal poaching and a booming black market? These plants, she argues, are important not only to the natural environment but also to southern identity.  She finds her inspiration in talking with the heroes, the botanists, advocates, and conservationists young and old on a quest to save these green gifts of the South for future generations. These passionate plant lovers caution all of us not to take for granted the sensitive ecosystems that contribute to the region's long-standing appeal, beauty, and character.”

Find Saving the Wild South at your local library or anywhere books are sold!

July To-Do’s

• Click here for Planting Calendar for Annual Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs by city. This link provides dates both based on estimated last frost and the lunar calendar.

• Click here for June’s list if you are still catching up.

• Plant seeds of fast-growing vegetables such as zucchini, lima and bush  beans for a late harvest.

• Plant seeds of collards, kale, broccoli, cauliflower and pumpkins in  containers to be set out next month in the garden.

•  It’s not too late to plant basil! 

• Plant zinnias and cosmos for a second round of flowers.    

• Sow coneflowers, black eyed Susan’s and coreopsis in pots. By fall they will be ready to plant in the garden.

• July is still a good month to take cuttings of shrubs. Take 6” long  cuttings, dip in rooting powder, plant in half sand/half soil mix, keep  moist. Tug to check for roots after 4-6 weeks. 

• Dig up, divide, and replant iris now.

•  Keep removing suckers from tomato plants.     

• Pull Japanese stiltgrass in garden beds. If you have large areas of stiltgrass that are not mixed in with perennials, you can string trim and have the same effect as weeding because you've prevented it from going to seed and it  will not come back from the root this late in the season.  We recommend string trimming stiltgrass in wooded areas and under bushes monthly from  now until first frost to decrease the likelihood of spreading. 

• Continue to trim any Spring flowering shrubs such as forsythia, azalea, rhododendron, quince, and loropetalum until July 10.

• Prune gardenias immediately after blooming but not after August 10.

• Continue deadheading faded blossoms from all perennials.
• Continue to water your favorite plants at least one inch per week during periods of dry weather. We recommend watering in late afternoon, as the heat of the day is gone and the water has a chance to soak into the  ground instead of starting to evaporate right away.  If that’s not possible, watering in the morning is fine.

• This might be a good time to have your soil tested. The test is free  to NC residents. Click here for more info. You may get kits here or ask us to test your soil for you.  In either case, we can provide any necessary amendments on your request.

Plant focus - Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Yarrow is native to temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, including the Piedmont region. The entire plant is edible to humans (although toxic to many animals) in small quantities. It has a long, rich history of medicinal uses across the world. Fossil records have been found in Neanderthal burial caves, indicating that humans have used this plant for at least 60,000 years! On Turtle Island, to name a few examples: Navajo chewed the plant for toothaches, the Miwok used it as an analgesic (pain reliever) and a remedy for head colds, the Plains tribes used it to reduce fevers and aid sleep, and Ojibwe inhaled the smoke of a decoction of yarrow leaves to treat headaches. It can be crushed into a poultice for burns and sores and can even help stop bleeding of minor cuts! Yarrow blooms from summer to fall, reblooms readily with frequent deadheading, and aside from being a beautiful addition to a garden or bouquet in its own right, can also be used as a ground cover and to help control erosion.

• Kel

“Do not look the other way;
do not hesitate.
Recognize that the world is hungry for action, not words.
Act with courage and vision.”

– Nelson Mandela

Happy Gardening!