June brings the longest day lengths, warm temperatures, and usually ample precipitation. Plants grow rapidly and summer blooms begin. This month, garden tasks include planting, weeding, edging, and monitoring.

Plants in the Native Plant Garden are the basis of food webs and crucial to the many animals that live here. Late spring and early summer provide frequent opportunities to observe animals in garden habitats. Although some animals may seem accustomed to people, we maintain protective distance from them as they feed, shelter, and raise their young nearby.

Woodchuck burrows are relatively large spaces with multiple openings and tunnels. We’ve seen woodchuck families with up to six babies using these burrows. Other species that use former woodchuck burrows include skunks and mink. Last year, eight baby skunks (kits) and six baby mink (kits) were present in and around the dens until all the young were large enough to travel away from it. This year (as of late May) an adult skunk and a mink are in den areas. If there are kits, they will be large enough to travel away from the area by late June.

Chipmunks in the garden create smaller burrows, especially in the rock walls. When abandoned, those burrows may be used by new queen bumble bees to establish and provision a colony. We’ve seen these large bees foraging on spring wildflowers, such as sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) and flowering trees. Signs of established colonies are queens carrying pollen to consistent nest sites and the first worker bees of the year foraging (observed in late May this year).

Last summer, a large painted turtle excavated a narrow nest and laid eggs in the garden lawn. After months of dormancy and development underground, painted turtles hatched in mid-May over several days. We’ve seen baby turtles dispersing from their upland nests before, but this was the first time we observed the female turtle laying her eggs and completing the nest by packing the soil firmly above them.

Recent signs of garden mammals include coyote scat, deer hoof prints and browse, rabbit forms (shallow bowl-like nests), mole tunnels, rabbit girdling on shrub stems, and mouse nests of finely cut grasses.

We’ve seen many nesting and foraging birds in and around the garden this spring. Tree swallows are nesting in the bluebird box in the dry prairie garden. Barn swallows swoop to and from their mud nests under the eaves of the building. A barn swallow nest (incorporating a small turkey feather) sits in a usual place on the hinge of the Visitor Center front door. In the terrace garden, we are watching two robin nests and one cardinal nest. We saw a hummingbird feeding on wild columbine and collecting small spiderwebs (for nesting) from our office window frames.

This year, after a successful nest, a sandhill crane family with two colts travels around the prairie, lawns, and gardens daily. In the early weeks of the colts’ lives, the adults first feed them directly, then extract items from the soil with their strong beaks, while the colts eat those items off the ground. Recently a visitor observed the crane family feeding on a large snake with the adults lifting it off the ground for the colts to eat.

We noted a “first” monarch in the Native Plant Garden on May 16 and observed eggs laid on common milkweed within a week. Within a few days of that observation, we found the goldenrod leaf beetle larvae feeding on Canada and giant goldenrod (Solidago canadensis and S. gigantea). That native insect has a significant effect as it skeletonizes goldenrod leaves when the plant is about 18 inches tall. In areas where these beetles are common, less goldenrod grows in subsequent years.

Native plant gardens are full of life – plants, animals, and other forms interacting – under soil, on the land, and in the air. Observe and enjoy the beginning of summer this month.

– Susan Carpenter, Native Plant Garden curator