Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
Healthy Gardens. Healthy Planet
If you asked me to name my top five native plants, I would probably hem and haw and spend a lot of time counting on my fingers. One of them, however, would make the list with no problems—the fantastic genus Agastache. More commonly known as hyssop or hummingbird mint, boasting a dozen species, the odds [...]
As I’ve posted about before here, I love Rain Gardens. Last year I removed a patch of lawn in my backyard, dug out a shallow basin, and extended two roof downspouts into it. When it rains (which it does a lot here in western Oregon), the garden fills with water and slowly infiltrates into the [...]
A type of wildlife friendly landscape that is attracting a lot of attention these days is the meadow garden. Even though this style of garden is considered one of the most beneficial and informal there are key points one should take into account before jumping in with both feet. One of the main considerations [...]
If a group of native plants can be considered as simultaneously obscure and baffling, it would surely be our native sedges. The USDA PLANTS database lists more than 500 species of Carex native to North America, but only a handful of these are readily available in the nursery trade and even fewer are commonly used [...]
It could be said that the most important component of what we as native plant gardeners/designers do is educate people. We feel an inherent value, Joy, and necessity to set an example for others; to provide for wildlife in our suburban landscapes. Historically some claim the idea of the native plant wildlife garden began in [...]
I have recently attended three very different garden shows that together reveal a big shift in our society’s gardening attitudes and interests. Yet I also found that a troublesome old belief – the idea that people’s garden dreams are more important than the health of the natural world – not only persists but is being [...]
When designing a native garden, plant selection is probably the one aspect people find most exciting–and daunting! At this juncture it’s good to pause and consider questions such as “What plant community do I live in?” and “How do I go about identifying this community?” This step requires one to look at the design process [...]
Not only are there plants that are protected from herbivory by ants , there are plants with a mutualistic relationship to ants for their seed dispersal. Readers who live in the eastern deciduous forest may know some of the plants: Erythronium americanum, Sanguinaria canadensis, Asarum canadense, Dicentra canadensis, Viola species, and Claytonia virginica. Many of [...]
This time of year, when straw-colored bunches of fine-textured native grass wave over a thin layer of snow in my yard, along with silver-gray and chocolate brown seed heads of last year’s wildflowers, people often ask me how I maintain my eye-catching “unlawn.” “It’s easy,” I say cheerfully, “I pronghorn it.” And then I grin [...]
When people think of creating a native garden the first thing that typically comes to mind is plant material. Images of specific varieties pop up in the mind’s eye along with characteristic flower color, aroma, foliage texture and ability to attract one’s favorite garden-friendly wildlife. Rounding out the general idea is how said plants will [...]
