Summary: Using native plants in gardening can reduce much of the effort required in the care of a landscape. Pretty much plant them and let them take care of themselves. Leave it to nature to worry about winter, insects, disease, fertilizers or cultivation.
Question: We are interested in native plant gardening and would like to use natives as much as possible. There seems to be a trend in planting native trees and shrubs, some states and counties even require a percentage of native plants to be used in new landscaping projects. What are the benefits of using native plants in our landscape design. Chad, Pottsville, PA
Answer: Chad, planting a garden with native plants is relaxed gardening. There’s seldom reason to think about winter – killing, serious insect or disease damage, fertilizers or cultivation.
While you probably won’t feel a change to wild flower gardening sufficient reason to throw out the shovel and the hoe, you most certainly will be impressed with the permanence and easy maintenance of native plants. Once such plants become firmly established, they can take almost any dose of drought or rain and appear to like it. If invasive weeds should gain a foothold, they must be rooted out, of course, but this need arises far less often than you might expect.
The one real requirement of a permanently successful and satisfying wild flower garden is a realistic, common sense attitude on the part of the gardener, plus a realization that the most desirable plants usually have basic likes and dislikes which must be met front the beginning. Suppose we take a look at these latter factors, more or less in the order of their importance.
Many of the most attractive native perennials are woodlanders and, while they are accustomed to moderate spring sunshine before tree leaves come out, they resent more than a daily hour or so of direct sun from midspring until fall. Unless these notions are satisfied, you’ll be courting trouble. Often you can provide a suitable environment by making a supplementary planting of trees and shrubs to create shade in an otherwise sun-soaked situation. This must be done before your main plantings are made.
Other wild flowers have opposite ideas and ask for plenty of sun at all times. Obviously these are the wisest selections if your available area is sunny during the warm months. Remember, though, that in the wild state most of these sun worshippers have a variable amount of root shade supplied by grasses or other low vegetation through the summer and that comparatively few can take the extreme sunlight of exposed rock crannies and pockets without some damage.
Sun and Shade Tolerant Native Plants
The largest group of desirable wild flowers is composed of plants that are tolerant of both sun and shade, provided neither is excessive. If your area is average in this respect, by all means start with this half-and-half class. Than, as you gain experience, experiment with some of the plants in the two preceding groups. Thus, in the course of time, you can establish a surprisingly varied collection of plants living in harmony and general happiness.
Soils For Native Plants
From the standpoint of physical character, soil for most native plants should be reasonably loamy, gritty and heavily stocked with natural humus such as leafmold or finely crumbled peatmoss. Bog plants, of course, prefer a heavy soil, and alpines as a rule like an extra dose of coarse sand or pulverized rock fragments.
Do not enrich any wild flower soil with materials used for increasing the fertility of general gardens. Our native plants seldom respond well to such stimulation. Remember, they have done very well for centuries without man’s help and are likely to he thrown completely off balance by an unnaturally rich diet.
Check Soil Acidity
The acidity of soil should always be considered, although it may well be that too much emphasis has been laid on this point in the past. It seems well established that all ericaceous natives, such as rhododendrons, azaleas, kaltnias and heaths, do best in and probably require a strongly acid soil with a pH as low as 4.5 and not higher than 5.5. A similar situation applies to a number of other wild plants, including the pyrolas, pink ladyslipper (Cypripedium acaule), hunchberry (Cornus canadensis), various clubmosses and chimaphila or pipsissewa. As a rule, all plants that grow under deciduous hardwoods (oak, hickory, birch) and mixed deciduous and evergreen trees tolerate, if not demand a definitely acid soil.
Desirable plants which require strongly alkaline conditions are few; the list is pretty much limited to those found growing on limestone, either crumbled or in solid rock form. Most of the plants you are likely to want will he satisfied if the pH of the soil is around the neutral point, from 6.5 to 7.5.
Drainage For The Native Plant Garden
Drainage is fully as important for native plants as it-is for those used in more sophisticated types of gardening and for the same reasons. The great majority of plants need air as well as moisture underground in order to carry on their normal growth processes. They are checked, if not gradually killed, by persistently dank, stagnant conditions around their roots. The low-ground and swamp dwellers are about the only ones that can endure wet feet all of the time. Frequently, even these will do all right in drier, better drained places than they are supposed to need.
As a general rule, therefore, your wild flower garden ought to be well drained, and if half or more of its area is definitely sloping, so much the better. More worth-while native plants prefer a slope than like to grow in flat or low-lying places.
Planting Exposure – Extending The Flowering Season
There is little difference between east and west as an exposure for the garden, but if you are working with irregular ground and can arrange for some northern and southern exposures, you have a definite advantage. It is possible to extend the flowering season of any of the early spring bloomers as much as a week by planting some of your supply in a warm south-facing spot and others in a northern exposure where the sun’s rays are less concentrated. In northward-facing spots, too, you will find your best chance of success with natives whose natural habitat has a climate considerably cooler than yours.
There is no one infallible way of determining the requirements of each species with respect to any of the foregoing factors. Your own observations of plants growing in the wild will help tremendously, of course, if you have a chance to familiarize yourself with their habitats. Most of the leading books on wild flower identification also provide good clues and some of the catalogs of native plant dealers contain helpful and reliable information on culture. By drawing on all such sources and your own common sense, it won’t take long to acquire the knowledge necessary for thoroughly worth-while results.
