Several years ago when I checked one of the country’s best nursery catalogs, I found over 50 species and varieties of our native wild flowers listed as common garden flowers. Many other varieties offered, such as the lovely new tradescantias, were horticultural varieties or hybrids with native wild flower ancestry. However, there are still many native wild flowers with garden value that are almost unknown. Of the seven listed below, I have successfully transplanted, while in full bloom, all except the hymenocallis, though it was moved when it was in good growth.
Adaptability of Native Plants
The general rule in transplanting wild plants is to give them garden locations that duplicate as closely as possible their conditions in the wild. Experimenting with garden surplus built up from seed, cuttings and divisions – has proved that many species, native to shady spots, will endure considerable sun. Many others, native only to wet swampy places, will flourish in the normal border, while still others flourish exceedingly when fed rotted manure. Furthermore, almost all species can be grown in the garden very much farther North and farther South than in their native range.
Shades of Blue
Ansonia labernaemontana, a near relative of the periwinkle, is a perennial native to wet places from Pennsylvania to Missouri and southward. In the regular border it makes a compact clump from a font to a foot and a half in height. Its lovely, glabrous, willow-like foliage yellows in the Fall, and is held late. The inflorescence is phlox-like; the color ranges from steel blue to periwinkle blue.
Gentians pubernia, downy gentian, at its best has a dozen stems to the clump instead of the usual single stein. As with most wild flowers, there is great color variation, but the best downy gentians are a brilliant blue that is more nearly a true blue than that of any of our other gentians, The flowers are fringed. and this often leads gardeners who have established this perennial in their gardens to report that they have the fringed gentian. A clump in bloom is a superb sight on sunny days. On cloudy days, the flowers remain closed, and are then easily mistaken for one of the closed gentians. In Illinois I found the species both in swampy prairies and dry prairies, and bad it flourish for years in a normal garden border. It makes a heavy growth of fleshy roots that must not. be injured in transplanting. Freshly gathered seed starts fairly well in a frame with bottom heat. It is native from .Alaryland to Georgia and westward.
Native Summer-flowering Bulb
Hymenocallis occidentaiis belongs to the same genus as the ismene, or Peruvian daffodil, the best plants suggest the ismene in both the fragrance and appearance of the bloom. Poor plants have insignificant flowers made up of narrow segments. The best plants, grown as great clumps, are difficult to equal in beauty when in full midsummer bloom. This spider lily, in its many variations, is found wild at the edge of swampy woods from Illinois southward. It does well in slightly moist, well-shaded garden soil. When grown from seed, it should flower in two to three years.
Little-known Mertensia
Merteusia paniculafa is native around Lake Superior and northward. It has been grown in the Chicago parks for nearly 4U years. both as a subject for forcing for Spring flower shows and as a ground cover in aspen groves and other unfavorable spots where conventional ground covers will not grow. It was bought as M. virginica, and has the same season of bloom. The flower stalks are two to three feet high. The flowers vary in color from washed-out blue to a rich dark blue; the buds are coral red. When used as a ground cover, the flowering stalks are cut back immediately after blooming. The plant. then sends up a thick new growth or dark green hairy leaves that cover the ground during Summer, Fall and Winter. Like mertensia, this species comes freely both from seed and root cuttings.
The common sundrops, Oenothera fruticosa, and closely related species, resemble the common evening primrose in color and shape of flower, but sundrops remain open all day. Sundrops grow wild front New England well into the Southern states. They range in height front a few inches to three feet. They vary, too, from single-stem plants to ones that make bushy clumps. Wild plants in this part of Kentucky make masses slightly over a foot in height – mounds that are covered from late Spring into Midsummer with a profusion of two-inch yellow flowers. In the garden they seem to do about equally well in light loam and heavy clay in sun or partial shade.
Stylophorum diphylium, the golden celandine poppy, native from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and Southward, takes kindly to cultivation and especially to Feeding with rotten chicken manure. In light woodland it usually blooms in the Spring only. On the east side of a building, given ample moisture and food, it blooms freely here both in the Spring and Fall, with a sprinkling of bloom all Summer. The golden, two-inch flowers are much enhanced by a central mass of orange stamens. The celancline-like foliage makes the plant decorative all season.
A Trillium Worth Growing
Trillium crectum, native from New England into Georgia, is difficult for the inexperienced to distinguish from T. grandiflorum except by color range. Both species are native to rich woods. T. erectum is vile smelling when brought indoors, but it has no noticeable odor in the garden. It wants ample moisture and considerable shade. Given that it will thrive in soils ranging from lightish loam to very heavy soil. In color it fluctuates from greenish to dark maroon, running through white, yellow, cream, pink, red, with endless variations as to mottling and striping.
by M Jacobs – 61429
