chomping at the bit?

It’s the end of April and everyone’s on fire with ideas for their gardens. Just in time, I am here to throw fuel on that fire! Many of you have already jumped on my offer to pre-order perennials from my wholesale sources (if you haven’t, don’t worry, there will be more opportunities). As you plan for garden additions, this post offers you some guidelines for success. As usual, I am hoping to offer you realistic guidance for balancing your need for ‘beauty’ with the needs of the native wildlife on your property. These are not mutually-exclusive concepts! After all, what is a ‘garden’ without the movement, sound and comedy provided by birds, bees and chippies?

In addition to reading a bunch more gardening books this winter, I attended some really terrific webinars, including one by Kelly Norris that focused on a more naturalistic approach to gardening. This is a topic that means more to me with each passing year as I see the positive results of this planting approach in my own garden. Kelly’s guidance on planting for abundance and considering the sense of place really speaks to my approach to ‘gardening with intention’.

your shopping checklist:

As you head out to shop, first, be thoughtful about your additions. I know, it’s SO HARD to pass up all the lovelies at the garden center after a long, dull winter. The scene from ‘Finding Nemo’ always comes to mind as the sea gulls are competing to be the first to capture and consume any food source, screaming ‘MINE, MINE, MINE!!’

We can all be a bit less gull-like and a bit more Zen-like when making our selections:

• honor the sense of place: choose plants that ‘fit’ the surrounding landscape, both in architectural aesthetic and in growing conditions (sun/shade/moisture/soil structure). For example, tropical plants will look out of place in a woodland garden (and will do nothing to support native creatures). Alternatively, ferns look out of place in a dry, sunny planting bed. The benefit: plants will be more vigorous and achieve long-term viability in the landscape, if planted in ‘the right place’.

• plant for abundance: consider devoting more budget to plant material and plan to use plants as ‘green mulch’, spending less budget (or no budget) on bark mulch. The benefit: dense, bio-diverse plantings will dramatically improve your garden’s ability to support pollinators and other essential wildlife. Also, there will be much less competition from weeds as their seeds will be shaded out and unable to germinate.

• aim for 70% native species: spend the time to research the best native plants for your area of the country. Here in New England, I have a directory of some of the most productive ‘starter’ plants under the ‘plants’ link at the top of this page. These are the plants that will be the most hardy and will be most likely to support beneficial insects and birds. The benefit: moths and butterflies and other creatures will thrive and support the entire food web! Tip: look for chewed leaves (like those on my Joe Pye Weed above) and rejoice!

• focus on ‘bones’ first: achieve a design with four season interest by building mixed borders that feature trees and shrubs for structure. The benefit: layers of woody trees and shrubs not only provide interesting spaces for the plant vignette layer, their bio-mass (leaves and bark) will provide the necessary habitat for hundreds of native insect species that support higher life forms like native songbirds. Native trees like oak, birch, cherry, maple, redbud and tulip help you achieve a large bio-mass of native habitat, giving you more leeway to plant non-native (not invasive!) perennials, annuals and grasses below. Shrubs like chokeberry, fothergilla and spicebush bring incredible bloom and fragrance to the pollinator garden in spring and stunning foliage in fall.

• remember, foliage + bloom = wow: when choosing plants, be considerate of foliage shape, color and texture, not just blooms. Combining plants with contrasting foliage color and texture will increase the visual appeal and interest of your garden through the seasons. Pair fine foliage specimens with broad leaf plants. Each will enhance the beauty of the other. The benefit: After blooms have passed, foliage carries the garden deep into fall, lending a soft, sophisticated aesthetic.

• mix up bloom shapes: combine spiky plants like salvia and persicaria with flat daisy shaped blooms along with lacy umbel shapes, and airy feather plumes. The benefit: these plant combinations are not only beautiful for us, but are also very beneficial for essential insects. Short-tongue bees prefer flat, daisy-shaped blooms that offer easy access to nectar and pollen. Long-tongue bees can probe more deeply into tubular blooms like penstemon. Tiny hover flies, sweat bees and butterflies love umbels like scabiosa dill and fennel. Many insects lay their eggs deep in the crowns of feathery ornamental grasses like our native bluestems. Read more about bloom shapes in the garden here!

• add manmade objects: garden supports and bird baths, especially, are so fun to embed deep into planting beds. Glass, metal and concrete all have a place among plant material in my garden.
  
  The benefit: not only do the hard surfaces contrast nicely with feathery foliage like bronze fennel, but multiple sources of water are appreciated by various forms of wildlife. Empty urns can provide a nice focal point. Just be sure that wildlife can’t fall inside and become trapped.

• choose plants that look good ‘dead’: choose coneflowers like rudbeckia maxima and echinacea that leave behind attractive dried seed heads. Plant amsonia hubrichtii that sports stunning fall foliage, aging to a dried wheat color through winter. Many ornamental grasses hold up well deep into winter, The benefit: assuming you allow your garden to stand ‘as is’ in the fall, many plants will continue to add drama and beauty until spring. More importantly, plants with seed heads, like coneflowers, will support songbirds like goldfinch, chickadees, juncos and tufted titmouse all through winter months.

• take lots of photos of your landscape to document the emergence of your plants. I can not overstate the value of having these images for future reference, especially in the fall when you are looking for spaces to plant more spring blooming bulbs like dog-tooth violets, daffodils, crocus and more. And SAVE PLANT TAGS, as you will almost surely forget the specific cultivar of a species. At some point down the road you will want that information.

In closing, I will reiterate that with a bit of research, planning and forethought, you can achieve bio-diverse, life-sustaining habitats that are also visually stunning twelve months of the year. You can find lots of information and resources on my page about native plants here. And, if things don’t go as planned (and they frequently do NOT in the garden), one can usually hit the un-do button and move a plant until you ultimately find it’s ‘happy place’.

~ Barb