Native Garden Update

So it’s been almost a year since I left off with a promise of an update on my native garden! Where did the time go? I’m sure you’ve all been on the edge of your seats wondering if my native garden was a success last year!

Overall, I would say I was fairly pleased. I really went all in on native plants last year and I think I was generally successful. Yes, my garden looked like a mess, but I was more focused on giving the plants a chance to get established than anything. To me, gardening is just a giant experiment and a constant learning process. So it might not always be pretty, but there’s always more to learn!

Las summer, my biggest surprise was my Pearly Everlasting. It spread prolifically, was not attractive to any pests, and it flowered its first year! The only other native plant that I’ve has flowered the year it was started from seed is Blue Lobelia, which was also a new addition last year. I started both using winter sowing. The Lobelia didn’t grow as robustly as the Pearly, so I’m hoping it will spread a lot this year. I’ve located it in my garden again so I’m happy to at least see it come back. My Bee Balm was insane again last year. I think soon I’ll be digging out Bee Balm and Pearly to keep them under control. Honestly, a good problem to have.

Spring flowers

In terms of spring natives, I’ve been meaning to write a post on ephemerals for over a year now. All I can report from my garden is that my Dutchman’s Breeches, which I thought was dead, popped up this year. It did not bloom last year or this year, but hopefully it will come back stronger next year and flower for me. I think it is like Bleeding Heart where it dies off in late summer so I’ll know what to expect this year. My blue flag iris is still there and looking happy, and just today I noticed buds on it. Only a fellow gardener could understand how excited I was!  I am so in love with my Wild Geranium. I can’t believe how sweet it is and how many flowers it has compared to leaves. It’s a bit scraggly on the leaves so I’m hoping it will gain strength over the summer. Hopefully also the flowers will lead to seeds and spreading.

My Eastern Red Columbine came up in an area that I have zero memory of planting it in. It is so pretty. I don’t know if I can get a pic to do it justice. I can see it from my kitchen window and it’s in a location where it has lots of room to spread. It actually motivated me to dig out some of the non-native blue columbine that was near it to prevent cross pollination. I’m genuinely surprised by how much I’m loving it.

My Wild Lupine is doing great, spreading beautifully, but something keeps munching it. I’m not super hopeful about my chances of getting flowers this year. I guess I’ll consider protecting it next year. Everything is looking good for my goldenrod and sneezeweed, which is spreading quickly! There was a plant that I was seeing here and there this spring and realized it was Obedient Plant. I started it using winter sowing last year and got one tiny set of flowers, but I’m glad to know it’s back. I’ve noticed is that the foliage of many native plants look the same. I don’t have the skills yet to differentiate a goldenrod from a sneezeweed from a black eyed susan. So often I’m kind of just going based on location.

Quick note on some other native plants

I’m still on the fence about my False indigo. It’s too big and I don’t love it enough to give it the space it needs. Also, considering that I planted it by sticking a cutting in the ground, I can’t be 100% sure it’s not a cultivar. I might dig it up after it flowers this year, although how I’m going to get it out when it’s planted in my rose patch, I’m not too sure!

As always, my swamp milkweed was a champ. I actually saw a monarch on it for the first time last year! No eggs or caterpillars yet, but maybe this year will be the one!

I’m very pleased with how my Meadowsweet is spreading. It didn’t flower last year, but I’m hopeful for this season. I was also gifted another native spirea, a Steeplebush, which flowered beautifully last year but is not spreading quite as much as I’d like.

Tasty native plants

The only natives I’ve planted out front have been echinacea and aster. Mostly to protect them from the bunnies and groundhog, if I’m being honest. The aster (probably my favourite native plant) did very well last year and the echinacea has been spreading beautifully. I’m just a little concerned this year that I might have aster yellows, an incurable disease on my echinacea. I ripped some out. We’ll see. I must say that one will hurt because I’ve struggled a fair bit with them. Before this, things had been going well enough that I was considering moving some echinacea to the backyard, its predators be damned! I’ve come to realize that maybe the best I can do is plant extra of everything with the understanding that some plants will have to be sacrificial. For example, I’ve barely seen my phlox in years, but I’ve decided to take the approach that the phlox is for him and the rest is for me.

Failures

Unfortunately, my abject failures last year were liatris, also known as Blazing Star, butterfly milkweed and purple milkweed. I started them all using winter sowing like most native plants I started from seed. The liatris did germinate and grow, but they were very slow and I think they weren’t quite big enough when I put them in the ground. The strict rules of winter sowing say that plants should be planted when they are still very very small but I don’t think these guys were strong enough and they just kind of disappeared. In terms of the milkweeds, they were bigger and I did plant them last year but they didn’t flower and I can’t find any evidence of them this year. I haven’t fully given up hope yet. As I said before, I’m having trouble identifying the things that are growing. And my garden is pretty messy as I wait for things to show themselves. Also, milkweeds are fairly late to emerge, so I’m trying not to despair.

So that’s the very exhaustive story of my native garden. I’m sure you must be thinking, Martha, don’t you have all the native plants you could want/need/fit?? But to that I would say, clearly you don’t know me very well! If you think back to my wishlist, there are still some plants I haven’t added. Truthfully, I am very excited and motivated about my garden this year. I have a bunch of new things going on and some old ones as well. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take me 10 months to provide an update again!