Tag Archives: Ashland Oregon Garden Club

Backyard Birds: Chestnut-backed Chickadee

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Chestnut-backed Chickadees:  These birds frequent backyard bird feeders regularly where they eat black oil sunflower seed, hulled sunflowers seeds, suet, nyjar seeds and some fruit, but 65% of their diet is made up of insects and other arthropods, including aphids, caterpillars, spiders, leafhoppers, tiny scale insects and wasps. Chestnut-back Chickadees are found up and down the West Coast and in the Pacific Northwest. Their habitat is dense wet coniferous forests of Douglas firs, Monterey pine, Ponderosa pine, Sugar pines, White firs, Incense-cedar and Redwoods. But, while these social noisy little birds prefer dark wet forests they have moved into cities where they utilize stands of willows and alder trees along streams, madrone trees, shrubbery along the edges of oak woodlands and ornamental shrubs in parks and gardens.

Photo by Kathy Munsel, ODFW https://myodfw.com/wildlife-viewing/species/chickadees-and-nuthatches

Article by: Carlotta Lucas, AGC Member

Backyard Birds: Brown Creeper

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Brown Creeper:  This tiny woodland bird eats mostly insects, but in winter at a backyard feeder they will eat suet, peanut butter, and occasionally sunflower seeds and corn. During the breeding season, Brown Creepers eat a long list of insects and their larvae. This includes stinkbugs, fruit flies, gnats, beetles, weevils, bark beetle, butterflies, moths, lacewings, caddisflies, scale insects, leafhoppers, katydids, flat-bugs, plant lice, ants, and sawflies along with spiders, spider eggs. Brown creepers are found throughout Oregon in forested areas. They use large conifer forests for foraging and breeding, but they need dead trees for nesting, because they build a hammock-like nest behind a flap of dead bark.

 

Photo credit: Mdf, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia

Backyard Birds at the Feeder

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Dark-eyed Junco is a common bird found in Oregon at bird feeders. Juncos are primarily seed-eaters, with seeds making up 75% of their year-round diet. At feeders they eat millet, hulled sunflower seeds, nyjar seeds and cracked corn. During the breeding season, Juncos also eat beetles, moths, butterflies, caterpillars, ants, wasps, and flies. Their habitat includes conifer and pine forests, deciduous forests of aspen, cottonwood, oak, maple, and hickory and during the winter they can be seen in open woodlands, in fields, along roadsides, and in parks and gardens.

Photo by: DKRKaynor, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

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Click the link below to check if your USDA Plant Hardiness Zone assignment has changed; search by zip code. Half of the USA has been reclassified. In 1990 Ashland Oregon was Zone 7b: 5°F to 10°F, but in 2023 Ashland is now Zone 8a 10°F to 15°F. Knowing your zone is important for plant survival in your area.

https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/

Below is a link to ‘A Way To Garden’ interview with Todd Rounsaville, USDA horticulturist and research scientist, where he explains this new USDA Zone map.

new usda plant hardiness zone map, with todd rounsaville

Below is a link to an Interesting 2018 article from Yale Environment 360 on how fast climate zones are shifting.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/redrawing-the-map-how-the-worlds-climate-zones-are-shifting

Generation Jones 2023

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Jeff and Julian Jones entertained garden club members yesterday during AGC’s Holiday Celebration. This father and son group has entertained club members often over the last 20 years, and they always delight us. Julian performed for garden member’s when he was just 9 years old. He has mastered his musical talents!