Celebrate Earth Day - Plant a Biodiversity Garden In Your Backyard Today
Create wildlife habitat and sustain native biodiversity in your own backyard. To help you get started, read about Biodiversity, or browse photos of Our Favorite Native Plants from our Biodiversity Garden in London, Ontario.
Guttation!
The new spring banner photo shows guttation on native strawberry. It's a funny-sounding word, but an interesting phenomenon. The drops on the leaf margins are not dew, but the result of a process called guttation. Guttation occurs at night, when plants accumulate excess water through their roots, but transpiration through stomata on leaf surfaces has stopped. The excess water is released through pores on the leaf margins (see full photo below, "Life Cycle of a Strawberry Patch"). Plant is native wild strawberry, or Virginia strawberry, Fragaria virginiana, and photographed on 25 March in our Biodiversity Garden. Native wild strawberry is an incredibly fast-growing and spreading, sun-loving ground cover with pretty white and yellow flowers and delicious edible fruits. Plant it this season instead of non-native ground covers, such as the invasive periwinkle, Vinca minor.
A Biodiversity Garden Supports our Pollinators
Posted by NM Zitani
8 March 2012
Watch these two short videos from our Biodiversity Garden in London, Ontario.
8 March 2012
Watch these two short videos from our Biodiversity Garden in London, Ontario.
(23 seconds; red admiral butterfly and the non-native honey bee on the native plant tall boneset)
(22 seconds; native bumble bee on the native plant tall boneset)
Life Cycle of a Strawberry Patch
Updated 12 April 2012
Posted by Nina Zitani, 22 December 2011
All photos by Nina Zitani
The strawberry patch in our Biodiversity Garden is the subject of a mini photo-documentary. Every few weeks I'll photograph the same patch and post it here, in order to track the changes it undergoes throughout the year. Plant is native wild strawberry, Fragaria virginiana.
Posted by Nina Zitani, 22 December 2011
All photos by Nina Zitani
The strawberry patch in our Biodiversity Garden is the subject of a mini photo-documentary. Every few weeks I'll photograph the same patch and post it here, in order to track the changes it undergoes throughout the year. Plant is native wild strawberry, Fragaria virginiana.
12 April 2012
25 March, morning, water droplets on leaf margins are the result of guttation, not dew
2 March 2012
6 February 2012, early morning hard frost
3 February 2012, Approximately two feet of snow has come and gone
19 January 2012, Fresh snow covers the strawberry patch
19 December 2011
7 am, October 28th 2011, first frost of the season
Last updated 21 April 2012
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All materials contained on this website are protected under United States and Canadian Copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, or published without the prior written permission of the author(s).
