By Zan Tomko
Pulling into the Arboretum, I noticed a crowd of blooming common milkweed that has arranged itself at the edge of a berm of ornamental evergreens. Maybe by plan, or by chance, this little “pocket garden” is one of many such surprises throughout the Arboretum that supports local wildlife.
Monarch butterflies everywhere are struggling for survival, and planting more milkweed — which monarchs rely on for food and habitat — can ease the dire situation. Further along, near the Visitor Center turnaround, more pockets of milkweed are tucked in among the formal display. I pulled over to photograph the blooming flowers and immediately noticed the honey-hay scent of the mauve flowerheads. Monarchs are just one of over 40 insect species that live off the bounty of milkweed.
Red milkweed beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus) is a type of longhorn beetle that eats milkweed leaves, buds and flowers. They sever the latex-filled veins in milkweed to bleed out the latex before eating the plant. Many milkweed insects — including this beetle — have red-orange aposematic “warning” coloring. The bright red hue signals to predators of its toxicity — in this case, from latex. The beetle wipes excess latex from its face with the outside of a milkweed leaf to keep the sticky latex from gluing its mouth shut.
Orange milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) is commonly known as butterfly weed. A close look at the flowers shows the similarity to common milkweed in shape and form. You can find butterfly weed and common milkweed blooming together throughout the Bennett-Johnson Prairie.
For a closer look at many prairie plants, visit the Prairie Garden, located just across Three-Mile Drive from the Bennett-Johnson Prairie. This miniature prairie has water features and paved paths and allows visitors to get a closer look at many of the prairie species. It is the ideal place to photograph Minnesota’s native plants all season long.
Another such pocket garden is really a copse — featuring smooth sumac trees pruned up along their trunks. Smooth sumac is the wild-child of the landscape, overtaking the immediate area where it is planted and growing in every one of the contiguous states.
Here, the gray, lichen-laden trunks stand out against the dark shade of the leaf canopy. I’m sure there are many lichen varieties in this colony, including the two pictured below — a bright-yellow hooded sunburst lichen and the silver-gray hoary rosette lichen. These lichens must have been growing for a few years to be so heavily coated. Be sure to slow down on your next walk at the Arboretum to take in the color and detailed texture of this miniature landscape. Even the pale-yellow flowers of the sumac have richly textured detail.
Sumac has a variety of traditional herbal and medicinal uses, and Indigenous peoples used sumac leaves in the herbal smoking mixture known as kinnikinnick. July also brings the Dakota Caŋpa Sápa Wi, the Chokecherry Ripening Moon. Like elderberries, chokecherries — which ripen at this time — are stringent and must be pitted and cooked before eating.
There might be 100 more pocket gardens throughout the Arboretum grounds. Everywhere you look there are tiny pockets bursting with life, put in place by the Arboretum’s staff and volunteers, working to create something special for every visitor. Enjoy your adventure.
Zan Tomko is an artist, horticulturalist and a Minnesota Master Naturalist.