Over the summer, our partners at Maine Association for New Americans (MANA) helped us recruit 12 teens to help us learn about and plant species from the K-5 Wabanaki Studies curriculum at Portland elementary schools. These new plantings will enable teachers and students to visit these plants as they grow and bloom during the school year while they study their importance to Wabanaki culture, relationships with wildlife, their indications for climate change, and other ecological benefits they provide.
We planted seven species at five of Portland’s elementary schools. These species are all available from Maine Audubon at shop.mainenativeplants.org, and are equally adaptable, beneficial, and attractive for the landscape surrounding your home.
Common Witchhazel, Hamamelis virginiana
Our native witchhazel is a large shrub with distinctive leaves that grows naturally in forest understories and edges. It prefers at least part shade and soil that is periodically moist. The herbal/medicinal values are widely known in many cultures, and the plant has also become widely cultivated. Many of the Witchhazel we see in developed landscapes are cultivars which have been genetically modified to bloom in spring – leave it to horticulture to fix what ain’t broke! That’s a loss for fall pollinators getting ready to hunker down for winter. We were most interested in the late blooms students can expect, search for, and study in October or even early November.
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Winterberry Holly, Ilex verticillata
Winterberry is a medium-sized shrub that appears fairly prolific and unremarkable until winter, when the female plants put on a dazzling display of bright red fruit. The plant is most commonly sold as sexed cultivars – we need males and females in the landscape to pollinate and produce fruit, which birds like Cedar Waxwings devour in late winter once it has fully ripened thanks to repeated freezing and thawing. We planted young wild types (not cultivars) in batches that hopefully included both sexes of plants. While these plants will be nondescript hosts for 33 species of butterflies and moths during the growing season, they will hopefully demonstrate plant ecology and wildlife benefits that students can observe during the depths of Maine winter.
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Shadbush, Amelanchier spp.
Shadbush or Serviceberry describes several native species of small flowering trees still abundant throughout our forests, riverbanks, and field edges. The common name is derived from these blooms coinciding with the spring return of migratory fish to coastal rivers and streams, making this plant a climate indicator used by Wabanaki people for millennia. The May blooms give way to edible fruit in June, thus the common name Juneberry in parts of the continent not connected to sea-run fish like Alewives and Salmon. Like other plants on this list, we were drawn to Amelanchier by the chance for students to enjoy and study phenology through blooms and relationships which occur during the school year, as opposed to plants that bloom and fruit while schoolyards are empty.
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Black Cherry, Prunus serotina
Black Cherry is a large tree common throughout what is now Maine. The beautiful elongated white blooms come out in early June and transition to clusters of black berries that mammals and birds love in early summer. These hardy trees grow in some of our toughest soil conditions making them a great city tree. Wabanaki people use this tree for medicine and for the incredible hardwood. Prunus is a host genus for a staggering 421 species of butterflies and moths, as well as a magnet for bees and wasps when in bloom. Special note: Black Cherry is an excellent native alternative for those of us losing White Ash or Green Ash to Emerald Ash Borer, or other hardwoods to various pests and blight.
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Photo: Dan Wilder
Beach Plum, Prunus maritima
Beach Plum is state listed as endangered in Maine, which is surprising given how tough and hardy this tiny tree—more of a shrub—really is. They grow in rugged conditions where soil is often lousy and the sun and wind are strong. As the name implies, they produce edible fruit if their beautiful June blooms get pollinated from nearby, and they were likely an important food source for coastal Wabanaki communities before this habitat was encroached upon by colonial development favoring its native seasides, and bringing with it dozers, concrete, and invasive plants. And as we’ve cleared forest for development away from the coast, most of us now live in places with soil and sun akin to the coastal sand plains where we too should be growing Beach Plum.
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Black Huckleberry, Gaylussacia baccata
Huckleberry is a tough little shrub which has served as a complement or alternative to blueberries for indigenous nations throughout North America. We planted it in schoolyards as an alternative to Lowbush Blueberries, which is a staple of Wabanaki Studies but can be hard to establish and thrive in alkaline, clay-rich, and/or weedy locations like the fringes of our schoolyards. The fuller profile of Black Huckleberry also makes them easier to spot and avoid by young aspiring foragers and mowers, while still producing ample fruit for people and wildlife.
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Sweetfern, Comptonia peregrina
Not actually a fern, Sweetfern is a small spreading shrub whose leaves bely a fern to those not noticing the woody stems beneath. This is a rugged plant which prefers to colonize a spot less desirable for plants needing more moisture, shade, or wind protection, but is thankfully becoming more prevalent in newly developed landscapes like parking lots due to its hardiness, salt tolerance, etc. Sweetfern smells remarkable, has been used in teas and tinctures for centuries, and even has antimicrobial properties which keep blueberry harvests free from bacteria like salmonella in pack baskets.
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During a day at Gilsland Farm, the youth participants and MANA staff took part in a workshop about indigenous knowledge and plants with our friend Mihku Paul. This included foraging and making tea from Sweetfern and other plants. We also learned about how plants contribute to biodiversity, particularly as larval host plants for butterflies and moths. We did some quick research together and found that the plants we planted historically could host more than 750 species of caterpillars when totalled together. Thus, we know that these schoolyards became more biodiverse far beyond just the new species of plants.
All told, we planted 82 of the species listed above at five elementary schools. Twelve teens who have recently emigrated from Angola learned about many new careers and earned $500 stipends for their hard work during some very hot days. We’re so grateful for Marie, Sonsonya, and the whole MANA team for joining us on this important project for both Portland elementary students and the teens who worked with us this summer. And the schoolyards just got more beautiful, too!
Maine Audubon is grateful to Sam L. Cohen Foundation for its ongoing support for Bringing Nature Home in Portland Public Schools.
