GETTING ON THE SAME PAGE WITH INDICATOR PLANTS

In an effort to make this blog relevant to as many gardeners as possible I am going to try to paint a picture of where I am in the gardening season through the use of plant phenology indicators. Plant pheno-WHAT?!?! Ok, ok…. so sorry for the all the geeky science stuff (it really is juicy once you sink your teeth into it!). This is a concept that is rooted in the practice of pest monitoring and control. Essentially, it was noticed that the growing stages of certain plants (‘indicator plants’) coincide with various developmental stages of pests (more importantly, the stages that are most vulnerable to control measures). These plants are called “plant phenology indicators”. For more information on this, I highly recommend reading the blog post from Jen Llewellyn at ONNURSERYCROPS. This post also includes the indicator plants typically used in Ontario. Since I already use these plants in my pest management and monitoring strategy, I will use them in my blog posts too. Since many of these indicator plants are not found across the country, I will also use some common plants in the landscape trade in the hopes of being applicable to more gardeners. My hope is to provide at least a general idea of how far along my area is in the current growing season. With that said, it may be the case that some of my indicator plants are not hardy in your area- I realize this is not a perfect solution to uniting gardeners across the Plant Hardiness Zones- but it is my best attempt!