Kate's Blog

I had a disappointment yesterday.

My first lupine seeds germinated – it's such an exciting moment when one sees the soil pushed aside by the curl of an emerging cotyledon (the first leaf)!

I had planned for some time to write about the importance of growing Wild Lupines, which are the host plant for three butterflies classified as extirpated in Ontario. Extirpated means that they once lived in the wild here, that they still survive somewhere else in the world, but no longer eist in the wild in this province.

The Karner Blue (Plebejus melissa samuelis) and the Frosted Elfin (Callophrys irus) rely exclusively on the Wild Lupine, it is the only plant their caterpillars are able to digest. The Wild Lupine is also the host plant for the Eastern Persius Duskywing (Erynnis persius persius), although this butterfly can use Wild or False Indigo (Baptisia australis) for food. In all three cases the last sightings were in the 1980s, in two areas in southwestern Ontario.

My seed has been collected from my own plants, the parent plant having been grown from seed labelled Lupinus perennis (Eastern, Wild or Sundial Lupine) that I purchased a few years ago from a large Ontario-based seed company.
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Sometime in June, somewhere around the Great Lakes, perched at the very top of a tree in a young, densely growing forest, a male Kirtland’s Warbler throws back his head and lets rip with a series of bubbly, clear notes that steadily rise in pitch, tempo, and volume: chip-chip-che-way-o. Spring is here! I’ve found the perfect spot, he calls.

He had to work hard to find it. This is a bird that has come back from the brink. In 1973, when legislation to protect endangered species was introduced in the United States (1977 in Canada), the Kirtland’s (Setophaga kirtlandii) was one of the first on the list, its global population down to an estimated 300-500 birds. Now it’s up to 5,500, breeding mostly in Michigan, where conservation efforts started in the 60s.

The habitat that meets this bird’s needs is so specific. It occurs only in the Great Lakes basin, mainly south of the Canadian Shield: Sandy soil with young pine and oak trees, 10 to 20 years old, growing densely with frequent clearings, with an understory of native shrubs and ground cover of native forbs and grasses to generate the insect populations and fruit required to feed young. It nests on the ground, sheltered by the boughs that sweep down to soil level. As the trees age, they drop these lowest branches and these warblers have to move on.
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The bees love my Jerusalem Artichokes (aka Giisizoojiibik, aka Sunchokes, aka Helianthus tuberosus). They flower in a dense mass of golden daisies swaying on six-foot-plus stems in September through to October, so the late-season bees are all over them. This plant is an important wildlife resource and produces tubers that are nutritious and delicious.

But whenever I’m asked about it, I advise against planting it. That’s because this plant is an imperialist – it spreads implacably through underground rhizomes that produce tubers and the patch soon grows larger than one family can consume. That at least has been my experience. We had some planted next to the rhubarb, a crop one would think could stand up to anything, but the sunchokes moved in and did not have a positive effect. And they kept on moving.

A long time ago, I gave some tubers to two different neighbours who were very keen. I warned them. They insisted. And of course the plant spread out of bounds for them and was considered a nuisance. So I didn’t give it away any more, and I certainly didn’t sell it.
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