NINJA GARDENING

IMAGE ABOVE: A nearly monolithic stand of Sorghastrum nutans aka Indiangrass at a road cut on my way to work. It surrounds an area of exposed bedrock where the soils are so shallow and dry that very little, if much of anything, is able to survive aside from the Indiangrass.

Sorghastrum nutans - Indiangrass
Zone: 3-9
Purchase from:
Agrecol Native Nursery, Everwilde Farms, Garden Harvest Supply, Grimm's Gardens, Morning Sky Greenery, Prairie Nursery, Prairie Moon Nursery, Shooting Star Nursery, Toadshade Wildflower Farm, Yellow Springs Farm Native Plant Nursery

I'm still amazed at the diversity of habitats in the few miles of my short bike ride to work. You'd never guess by the pictures of above, but these were taken only a few miles from downtown Cambridge, MA. In the twenty minutes it takes me to get to work I get a small sampling of nearly all the non-coastal habitats in northeast Massachusetts. Yet it is this diversity that not only astounds me, but reminds me of the complex interconnected matrix upon which species diversity, population health, and sustainability relies. Yet, with each passing year, this matrix becomes increasingly patchy and disconnected, particularly in the coastal US.


IMAGE ABOVE: When examined discretely, development and general population growth are damaging to the genetic diversity of local populations, but when you take into account the affect that such impediments and barriers have on gene flow and the ability of a population to gradually migrate overtime, the cumulative affect of such factors may affect the long term sustainability of any given population.

We may like to disassociate and project "environmental villanism" to far away virgin tropical rainforest (cue b-reel of some rando buzzing through a tree), but the reality is every time we decide to clear some local parcel for a nice water guzzling invasive monoculture, aka lawn, we are much more guilty than that guy with the chain-saw. He's doing it to make a living.... so what's our excuse?

So faced with this not so nice reality I've decided to take it upon myself to act as a modern day Noah, aka human corridor (see diagram above), ferrying what would otherwise be isolated, often endangered plant populations to un-populated habitats ripe for colonization. Such areas are often diversity barren due to the fact that they themselves have been ecologically sterilized by means of human induced isolation. I realize there are many valid arguments against this, the first and foremost being my own lack of expertise. However, in my attempt to aid in the healthy diversity of these isolated habitats and ecological communities I don't plan on trekking through virgin ecosystems and digging up rare or endangered species and relocating them, but rather collecting the local seed of common (or the occasional not so common) wildflowers I find on the side of the road (or perhaps ordering a seed or two from a nursery), and introducing them in areas where they have a good chance of establishing long lasting, and sustainable populations.

And so for my first attempt at being a garden ninja the isolated stand of Indian grass I featured above (location undisclosed) seemed like a great place to start, and a perfect case study. Road bound on every side, and nearly a monoculture of S. nutans (with a few sporadic Andropogon mixed in) and not having a habitat equivalent for miles, I run the least risk of jeopardizing the genetic integrity of any nearby sensitive populations. Given how isolated this particular site is, and the fact that it's entirely man made to begin with, I also plan on experimenting with a few Western natives that might be able to thrive where the soils are simply too shallow and exposed for any of our locally endemic species to endure. Below is the list of natives (and native-ish) plants I intend to use, hopefully with at least some success (you may notice a trend with a lot of the plants I've selected.... what can I say, hummingbirds are f*@#ing awesome!!!).


NORTHEAST NATIVES


Aquilegia canadensis - Canada Columbine
Zone: 3-8
A few different cultivars available on the market including 'Corbet,' 'Little Lanterns,' and 'Pink Lanterns.' The straight species is still the most commonly sold form and is available from almost every nursery specializing in natives.
Purchase from: Nearly Native Nursery, Amanda's Garden, American Meadows, Bluestone Perennials, Everwilde Farms, Garden in the Wood of Grassy Creek, Grimm's Gardens, High Country Gardens, J. L. Hudson Seedsman, Lazy S'S Farm, Michigan Native Butterfly Farm, Niche Gardens, Prairie Moon Nursery, Prairie Nursery, Select Seeds, Grimm's Gardens, Shooting Star Nursery


Asclepias tuberosa - Butterfly Weed
Zone: 3-9
Color variants exist, leaning from deep yellow to red-orange, but most of the material out there is derived from ecotypes found in sandy soils. If you garden in heavy clays (like me) a few nursery's offer material adapted to heavier soils.
Purchase from: Nearly Native Nursery, Accents for Home and Garden, Almost Eden Plants, American MeadowsAvant Gardens, Companion Plants, Deer Country Gardens, Everwilde Farms, Garden Crossings, Garden Harvest Supply, Garden Starts Nursery, Gardens in the Wood of Grassy Creek, Grimm's Gardens, High Country Gardens, J Lynn Nursery, J.L. Hudson Seedsman, Lazy S'S Farm, Logee's Greenhouses, LoneWillow Farm, Michigan Native Butterfly Farm, Niche Gardens, Prairie Nursery, Romence Gardens & Greenhouses's, Rose Franklin's Perennials & Herbs, Santa Rosa Gardens, Select Seeds Antique Flowers, Smart Seeds, Sooner Plant Farm, The Growers Exchange, Toadshade Wildflower Farm, Yellow Springs Farm Native Plant Nursery, Prairie Moon Nursery, Prairie Nursery


Ionactis linarifolia - Stiff Aster
Zone: Sources all over the place witht this one... 3-8?
Purchase from: Midwest Groundcovers, Prairie Moon Nursery, Shooting Star Nursery


Opuntia humifusa - Eastern Prickly Pear
Zone: 4-9
Purchase from: Nearly Native Nursery, Everwilde Farms, Fry Road Nursery, Romence Gardens & Greenhouses, Toadshade Wildflower Farm



MID-ATLANTIC/SOUTHERN NATIVES


Ipomopsis rubra - Standing cypress
Zone: (5)5-9, (BIENNIAL)
Purchase from: Nearly Native Nursery, Everwilde Farms, J.L. Hudson Seedsman, Onalee's Seeds, Select Seeds Antique Flowers, Smart Seeds


Manfreda virginica - False Aloe
Zone: 6-9
This isn't the best picture of this plant (all you can see is the tall flowering stalk in the center of all the people), but after growing this plant myself, and seeing it in this picture next to other moisture loving species in what appears to be a wet meadow I'm beginning to think this agave relative needs more moisture than the literature suggests.
Purchase from: Companion Plants, Lazy S'S Farm, Niche Gardens, Odyssey Perennials, Shooting Star Nursery



WESTERN NATIVES


Agastache rupestris - Sunset Hyssop
Zone: 5-9
Purchase from: Annie's Annuals and Perennials, High Country Gardens, J.L. Hudson Seedsman, Joy Creek Nursery, Lazy S'S Farm & Nursery, Michigan Native Butterfly Farm, Romence Gardens & Greenhouses, Sooner Plant Farm


Castilleja integra - Wholeleaf Indian Paintbrush
Zone: 4-8
C. coccinea is a more commonly available biennial that is unfortunately difficult to establish in cultivation. C. integra is one of the easier perennial species to start with.
Purchase from: Everwilde Farms, Cactus Store


Hesperaloe parviflora - Red Flowered Yucca
Zone: 5-10
Purchase from: Accents for Home and Garden, Almost Eden Plants, Annie's Magic Garden, Dancing Oaks Nursery, Eldon Tropicals's, High Country Gardens, J.L. Hudson Seedsman, Lazy S'S Farm, Niche Gardens, Smart Seeds, Sooner Plant Farm


Penstemon pinifolius - Pineleaf Penstemon
Zone: 5-8
High country gardens has selected several cultivars of this species for both color (ranging from a a clear yellow to deep red) and height.
Purchase from: Annie's Annuals and Perennials, Forestfarm, Gardens in the Wood of Grassy Creek, High Country Gardens, Joy Creek Nursery


Zauschneria spp. (arizonica/garrettii) - Hardy Hummingbird Trumpet
Zone: 5-9
Z. arizonica, syn. Z. latifolia var. arizonica
Purchase from: Forestfarm, High Country Gardens
Z. arizonica syn. Z. canum subsp. garrettii
Purchase from: High Country Gardens, Joy Creek Nursery, Romence Gardens

IMAGE SOURCES: MATRIX-PATCH HABITAT, A. CANADENSIS, A. TUBEROSA, I. LINARIFOLIA, O. HUMIFUSA, I. RUBRA, M. VIRGINICA, A. RUPESTRIS, C. INTEGRA, H. PARVIFLORA, P. PINIFOLIUS, Z. ARIZONICA

THE DEATH OF A GARDEN

Acceptance is a strange animal. You might go for years trying to chase it away, resolute in your convictions. But you can only keep your guard up for so long, and before you know it you've opened your door and your convictions get trampled. This summer was it for me. After years of trying to convince myself that I could find the time if I just tried harder, or I would take a year and just focus my energy on rebuilding things, reality has finally come down on me.... hard. The gardens that I spent most of my free time cobbling together during my middle school and high school years (yes, even then) are officially gone. 100% DEAD. There is no amount of weeding, dividing, cutting, or moving that can undo the.... now years, of serial neglect.

The final straw came this weekend (among many, many other straws). I managed to come back for a visit to see the family and was doing my usual walk through the yard, surveying the few plants that have managed to survive the weeds and the occasional mow over only to find the one plant that seemed to be loving the neglect, smothered in one of the grossest plant out there... dodder (genus Cuscuta). There are way too many species for me to try to ID it, but the entire genus is essentially composed of sickly, leafless, almost worm like parasitic vines that, upon germinating, sense the nearest plant, grow towards it, and soon attach themselves, entangling and feeding off the original host and whatever other compatible plants they come in contact with. Really nasty buggers. And once they get going there's really no way to kill them without digging up all the plants the've attached to. Their roots actually die off when they're young and the plant becomes a giant brittle messy mass of tangles, where each portion of stem that comes in contact with another plant has the capacity to keep living and growing despite how many pieces you might try to rip it into.

.
Dodder (Cuscuta sp.) smothering what would otherwise be a healthy clump of Cardinal Flower

This was on top of my Dad throwing a family friend some work and letting them mow the lawn.... which apparently included mowing down the nice big weed-smothering clump of 'Jacob Cline' that had been doing beautifully the last few years despite getting zero attention. So much for that. Hopefully it comes back next year.


Monarda didyma 'Jacob Cline' pre and post mow down. Note the beautiful garden ornament on the right, most likely placed there by my Dad. As with the many peices of random junk that dot my old yard, I have no idea how it got there, why its there, or what the hell it is.

Now that I think about it, the beginning of the end all started when the beaver showed up (yes, the beaver). I think it was my senior year in high school when they decided to start their dam right where I had just spent the previous summer trying to start a kick-ass shade garden (Begonia grandis, Arisaema sikokianum, Petasites japonicus var. giganteus, Osmunda regalis, and Brunnera macrophylla). If this wasn't enough, after they built their dam the Black Willows that dominated our backyard slowly fell one by one and crushed the few plants that the beaver hadn't burried, including a huge old tree-ish clump of Ilex verticillata and Vaccinium corymbosum. The only thing that managed to make it through the onslaught of natural disasters were the Petasites and a few Royal Ferns that somehow managed to make there way through the many feet of mud, sticks and logs the beaver threw on top of'em.


The Black Willow (Salix nigra) on top of the beaver damn on top of what's left of my shade garden. Mainly Petasites japonicus var. giganteus, pictured to the right (which I should actually probably get rid of before it invades the adjacent wetland)

And lastly is my old rock garden. You'd never know now to look at it, and I still kick myself for not taking any pictures when it was at its peak (other than a few close ups of some cactus), but the now mess of a hillside was once full of silvery foliaged heat loving beauties, cacti, and succulents, all tucked in a slew of rocks and small boulders that I dug up elsewhere and then painstakingly moved (by hand) all over the hill. The list of plants was long, but included Agastache rupestris, Festuca ovina var. glauca, Helianthemum nummularium 'Wisely Pink,' Sedum sieboldii, Sempervivum arachnoideum, Kniphofia caulescens, Kniphofia 'Fire Dance,' Stomatium mustellinum, Delosperma nubigenum, Gymnocalycium sp., Echninocereus spp., Penstemon spp., Yucca filamentosa, and Opuntia humifusa (just to name a few). Most of the plants were either started from seed, division or cuttings, although there were a few I got from mail order nurseries. Sadly, its pretty much all gone now. I rescued 2 of the cactus that I started from seed, but aside from a few Kniphofia that have seeded themselves along with a few surviving clumps of Opuntia and Yucca, none of the plants survived. Our super clayey soil along with an invading grove of Black Locust has certainly sped the process along.


While it may not seem entirely believable.... this was once a really well kept space.
RIP Gymnocalycium and Echinocerus.

Obviously I'm still in a little bit of denial, but for the most part I'm ready to move on. If nothing else I've learned how quickly things go to crap, and while novelty gardening is fun (if you have the resources and the time) the thing that really attracts me to doing this stuff in the first place is the possibility of creating something that has the potential to outlast me once I'm gone. While this might be an unrealistic goal when it comes to gardening, we all have to accept that at some point in our lives we all get either too busy, too old, or need to relocate and we will have to leave our gardens behind. Either way, things will happen (like falling trees, beaver, and Dodder) and nature will inevitably take its course. So if you'd like your garden to be around (at least for a little while) after it loses its gardener, work with the site as much as you can, rather than against it. Choose plants that are happy to grow in your yard without coddling or fussing, and maybe, just maybe you'll manage to make something that will be around to make other people happy long after your gone.

CAUSE GARDNER'S ARE BUSY PEOPLE TOO!

If I could figure out how it is that after taking a day off I somehow managed to end up a week behind schedule I'm pretty sure I could unlock the secrets of the universe. But, until then, I am reminded that we all have too many things to get done and somehow less and less time to do them in. And as much as I would like to spend all day puttering around the yard, the reality is I have way too much other crap to get done. Ultimately, if I don't spend the little bit of free time I do have strategically the whole thing goes to hell in handbasket (do people say that anymore?) in less than a season. Anyway, at least as far as yard work is concerned I'd like to think I'm pretty demanding of myself, but I'm also pretty demanding of my plants. I definitely don't have the time to pamper myself, so I'm pretty damn sure not gonna do it for what I'm throwing in the ground.

My demands are pretty simple. Aside from meeting some basic cultural requirements (light, moisture, etc.) I want what every other gardner wants, to plant it and forget it. After which I not only expect it to thrive, but preferably weave (aka seed itself lightly) through the garden. Enough to fill in whatever gaps there might be, but not enough to be a nuisance. Granted, in no universe would I be considered an experienced gardner, but in my limited experience I have managed to compile a list of "go to" plants that never seem to dissapoint me, provided they are at least moderately well-sited. For the most part they are fairly well behaved, but always happy to volunteer (almost always it seems in just the right spot). Some may find these plants a bit (or entirely) too weedy for their liking, but as far as I'm concerened all garden plants should be at least a little weedy; let'em loose and battle it out. The only real way to garden if you ask me.



DRY AND SUNNY



Lychnis coronaria (Rose Campion)


Opunitia humifusa (Eastern Prickly Pear)


Euphorbia corollata (Flowering Spurge)


Agastache rupestris (Sunset Hyssop) - needs excellent drainage and a sandy soil in the northeast, but one of my favorite plants. Will reseed if conditions are to its liking. Wonderfully scented foliage somewhere between rootbeer and mint. Semi-woody perennial that shouldn't be cut back till spring to improve cold hardiness.


Perovskia atriplicifolia (Russian Sage) - not really thought of as a reseeder, but will if there is some open ground nearby.


Echinops ritro (Globe Thistle)


Oenothera speciosa (Pink Evening Primrose) - Have never actually had any luck growing this myself, but have never really given it what it needed either (lots of sun, heat, and fairly dry, quickly draining soil). Have seen it growing exuberantly all around where my area if these conditions are met.


AVERAGE AND SUNNY


Platycodon grandiflorus (Ballon Flower)


Oenothera fruticosa (Sundrops) - admittedly, an aggresive plant, but not too tall, so as long as it has taller neighbors, a great filler.


Tradescantia spp. (Spiderwort)


Allium tuberosum (Garlic Chives) and Allium schoenoprasum (Chives)
If I had to choose between the 2, I'd have to go with A. tuberosum. It stays fresh looking the entire growing season and blooms late when most of the perennial bed has already closed up shop for the season. Another plus is the persistent seed heads, which are just about as pretty as the flowers themselves. Both species will reseed.


Echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower)


Valeriana officinalis (Valerian or Garden Heliotrope)


Saponaria officinalis (Soapwort) - not common in the trade, but common everywhere else. Sidewalks, roadsides, cracks in walls, and the occasional garden. While somewhat aggressive, it is one of the few plants that looks fresh in the heat of the summer.


Adenophora spp. (Ladybells)


Campanula takesimana (Korean Bellflower) - Will spread far and wide. Roamer and a romper.


Aquilegia vulgaris (European Columbine) and Aquilegia canadensis (Eastern Red Columbine) - Pink form of A. candensis ('Pink Lanterns') as well



MOIST/WET AND SUNNY


Monarda didyma 'Jacob Cline' (Jacob Cline Bee Balm) - THE BEST bee balm. Bee balms are, especially this one, at their best when given consistently moist, moderately wet soil. Drought sends them packing.


Lobelia siphilitica (Great Blue Lobelia)


Lobelia cardinalis (Cardinal Flower)


Eupatorium spp. (Joe Pye Weed) - Do not plant this in anyplace that dries out! It will persist, but will look pretty crappy and give Joe Pye Weed a bad name when in reality it is a first rate plant. Consistently moist/wet soil only!!!


Lychnis flos-cuculi (Ragged Robin)



MOIST/WET AND SHADY


Brunnera macrophylla (Siberian Bugloss) - Can also tolerate drier soils. Awesome plant. Very adaptable.


Thalictrum pubescens (Tall Meadow-Rue)


Chasmanthium latifolium (Northern Sea Oats) - Can also tolerate drier soils.



AVERAGE/DRY AND SHADY


Helleborus orientalis (Lenten Rose)


Geranium x cantabrigiense (Hybrid Bigroot Geranium) - Also try G. x cantabrigiense's parents G. dalmaticum & G. macrorrhizum. Both are just as good as their awesome child. Shade and drought tolerant. Can be used as a groundcover. Semi-evergreen foliage colors nicely in the fall.


Eurybia (formerly Aster) divaricata (White Wood Aster)


Symphyotrichum (formerly Aster) cordifolium (Blue Wood Aster)


Dicentra eximia (Wild or Fringed Bleeding-heart)


Stylophorum diphyllum (Celandine-Poppy or Wood Poppy) - Very underutilized native woodland wildflower that happily reseeds. Not to be confused with the non-native weed Chelidonium majus (Greater Celandine).