Member Garden: Dan Carter

Dan Carter’s passion for native plants and natural communities like prairies started in high school. But it has continued to grow and spread, just like the hundreds and hundreds of native plants in his yard.

This is an excerpt from the Wild Ones Journal
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With a Ph.D. in biology from Kansas State University, Carter is a conservation and restoration ecologist. “I see sick land everywhere, so my garden is an opportunity to create a reprieve. I don’t understand how anyone who has seen a high quality remnant prairie, oak savanna or old growth forest wouldn’t be moved and inspired to do what they can at home,” he said.

To those who know him well, it was no surprise that when he, his partner and their two children moved into their home in Dousman, Wisconsin in 2014, Carter immediately started to work on the landscaping.

He tore out the yew hedge in front of the house and started the process of converting existing beds, lawn and invasive-dominated peripheral areas to native plants.

Carter said he created his garden paradise a little bit at a time over five years, methodically killing sod and planting natives.

“My system essentially involves killing turf, planting native sedges, bunchgrass or forbs that are low growing and spread, and placing other native species in-between without the use of mulch,” he said. The vegetation quickly filled the space, and the result functions much like a prairie or the herbaceous layer in a healthy woodland.

Once the first areas were established, he was able to divide and transplant seedlings throughout the rest of their property. He also started many of his own plants from seeds, either under lights or planted in rows in nursery beds, and later moved them into the garden.

“I garden on a principal of no beds and borders, which I think create divides between people and the flora and fauna in their gardens,” Carter said. “Our more intensively used lawn area instead transitions into taller native vegetation, and there is generally no clear dividing line. I want my children to get into the garden and find flowers, insects and tree frogs.”

Carter said his favorite native plants are sedges, and he grows more than 40 species. His favorite, perhaps, is long-stalked sedge (Carex pedunculata), which is a clumping and evergreen woodland species. It flowers very early in the spring and it is unique among sedges in producing an oily elaiosome with its seeds that serves as a reward for the ants that assist it with dispersal.

“There are sedges that thrive in all community types, moisture levels and soils,” he said. “The variety of form in their foliage and fruiting structures provide complexity and beauty.”

Carter said most of what he grows is native to Wisconsin, but he worries less about geographical boundaries than he does the shared coevolutionary history that fosters ecological interactions.

Since the present climate in his location is about that which occurred a couple hundred miles to the south in the mid 1800s, Carter also grows a number of species whose northern pre-European range limits were to the south, but which occur in woodlands, savannas and prairies.

“One benefit of this is that it extends the season in which floral resources are available,” Carter said. “For example, our latest Wisconsin native aster is aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium), but I also grow turbinate aster (Symphyotrichum turbinellum), which extends the bloom window by a week or two in autumn and continues to be visited by bumblebees during that time. Our native consumers of aster foliage like the brown-hooded owlet moth (Cucullia convexipennis) also feed on it.”

Carter said one of the unique features in his yard is the native lawn, which is comprised of North American species including poverty oat grass (Danthonia spicata), buffalo grass (Bouteloua dactyloides), ragworts (Packera spp.), pussytoes (Antennaria spp.) and sedges (Carex spp.).

“I’m at the point where maintenance is low and can be accomplished on casual walks through the garden, but as seed collection and plant division allows, I’m working to increase the presence of species I like, particularly early flowering ones like wood betony (Pedicularis canadensis) and midland shooting star (Primula meadia),” he said.

Not surprisingly, their yard is home to many pollinators, birds and other animals.

“Last year I documented a northern golden bumblebee (Bombus fervidus) visiting cream and blue false indigo (Baptisia bracteata and Baptisia australis var. minor) respectively,” he said, noting that his neighbors call their home the “butterfly house” since monarchs and other butterflies are common visitors.

“Our yard is also used by at least seven species of reptiles and amphibians,” he said. “Our avian highlight so far was a whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus) that hung around for a few days during spring migration a few years back, and it treated us to a call that once was common, but is now very rare.”

While a major goal of the garden is to attract wildlife, Carter also believes that native plants have intrinsic value and are worthy of our conservation efforts regardless of their direct or measurable benefits to wildlife or humankind. He adds that most have undergone declines of 95% or more in their natural populations over the last couple hundred years.

Carter is active in the Kettle Moraine Chapter of Wild Ones. Besides hosting a yard tour for members, he has presented programs to the chapter, as well as the Milwaukee North, Menomonee River Area and Milwaukee Southwest Wehr chapters of Wild Ones.

Check out his blog at https://prai-riebotanist.com/background/.

About the Yard

•  The half-acre subdivision lot in Dousman, Wisconsin — located about 40 miles west of Milwaukee — is home to about 525 plant species that are native to the prairies, savannas and woodlands of eastern North America between the Great Plains and Appalachian Mountains. Those represent 99% of the vegetation growing outside of their vegetable garden.
• In their vegetable garden, Carter has introduced the native annual redwhisker clammyweed (Polanisia dodecandra) as a native “cover crop” to fill open spaces. He also uses the vegetable garden area for native plant propagation.
• The property includes a small lawn area in the most intensively used area, but even that is 100% North American species, such as buffalo grass, poverty oat grass, sedges, ragworts, cat’s foot and others.
• In 2017, the property was part of a tour by the Kettle Moraine Chapter of Wild Ones.
• The property is a certified pollinator habitat, Monarch Waystation and Wild Ones native plant butterfly garden.

Written by Barb Benish