multnomah county master gardener volunteer hours logsheet

MULTNOMAH COUNTY MASTER GARDENER VOLUNTEER HOURS LOGSHEET PATCH
MULTNOMAH COUNTY MASTER GARDENER VOLUNTEER HOURS LOGSHEET SERIES

( Matteson and Langellotto, 2011).Īnd, although I did not specifically research this principle, it should go without saying that if you want a diversity of insects in your backyard, you need to reduce or eliminate pesticide use ~ and in particular, reduce or eliminate use of broad spectrum insecticides. However, the small scale efforts often promoted by various organizations don't seem to have much of an effect, in terms of increasing beneficial insect diversity in gardens. Adding in native plants surely has benefits for wildlife (an argument convincingly made by Doug Tallamy in his book, Bringing Nature Home).The number of flowering plants in urban gardens predicted bee and butterfly diversity more than any other factor we measured. Plant more flowering plants, and you'll get more bees and butterflies.Gardens, even in the most heavily urbanized areas, host a diverseĪssemblage of beneficial insects.

MULTNOMAH COUNTY MASTER GARDENER VOLUNTEER HOURS LOGSHEET SERIES

My own research has yielded a series of papers, co-authored with Kevin Matteson, Evelyn Fetridge and others, and suggests a few basic principles for insect biodiversity in gardens. They thus set out to record every species they could catalog in their house and from their yard ~ efforts so elegantly reported by Carol in her New York Times article. It made the Peterson - Yoon clan wonder what else might be discovered in their yard. And it all started with Carol's discovery of a rare moth on her Bellingham, WA windowsill ~ a moth that had, until that time, yet to be discovered (or at least, not recorded) in North America.

MULTNOMAH COUNTY MASTER GARDENER VOLUNTEER HOURS LOGSHEET PATCH

It's amazing to me how hospitable a small patch of land can be, to so many different types of insects.Ĭarol and her family are doing the same thing, although on a broader taxonomic scale. So far, I've collected 36 species of bee, 20 species of beetle, 29 species of fly, as well as springtails, snakeflies, mantids, and many other insect goodies. I'm curious to know if any insects dare tunnel through the hard, clay areas of unamended soil. I want to see which ground beetles and springtails gather in my compost pile. I want to know which flowers the bees visit and which ones are merely eye-candy for me. I want to know what insects are mere transients through my garden, and which ones call my garden home. My secret goal is to document every insect species that visits my backyard garden, similar to the classic A Natural History of New York, by John Kieran. The bounty from an afternoon spent collecting insects in my backyard. Basically, I collect on summer days when work gets overwhelmingly stressful ~ and I need to do something to calm my mind, but could still qualify as 'work'.

I don't collect every day, or even every week during the summer. īut once I bought my first house and started gardening, I also started to collect the insect species that visit my yard.

Image linked to Science Daily press release at. Cerambycids are beautiful, and sometimes quite damaging.Ī banded alder borer ~ one type of cerambycid beetle. I really looked up to these smart and accomplished folks, and I wanted to emulate them. Bob also collected: coins, pine cones, lichens. Merrill and Micky Eubanks kept birding lists. If you're an entomologist, it's nearly mandatory that you have a collection.

We also spent quite a bit of time talking about our various collections. If you couldn't think of something new to add to the growing list, you were out. Our lab was fun! Our field sites were a 3 hour drive from the University, and we often killed time by playing games where we took turns naming as many birds species, butterfly host plants, car models, cartoon shows, or anything else we could come up with. My time at Maryland was about as utopian as a graduate student's experience could be. Carol's husband, Merrill Peterson (who is mentioned in the New York Times article), was a post-doctoral researcher in Bob Denno's laboratory, where I was working on my graduate degrees. I knew Carol from my time as a graduate student in the Entomology Department at the University of Maryland. While researching potential speakers for the annual Gardener's Mini-College, I came across this lovely article in the New York Times, written by Carol Kaesuk Yoon.

Multnomah county master gardener volunteer hours logsheet