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Wild Roots
  • Follow us on Instagram as we plan for Spring 2021.

Habitat Garden Planning: Starting with a Clean (or Messy) Slate

Getting Started: Garden Planning

We’ve heard from a few people over the past couple of months who’ve moved into new homes with outdoor space, want to garden with the environment in mind, and aren’t quite sure how or where to start. We’re not professional landscape designers, but we are environmentalists with a modest budget and big dreams with experience doing exactly that. We’ve learned a lot — and are learning something new all the time — as we transform our own backyard of turf grass and invasives to a wildlife- and family-friendly habitat.

Here are a few tips for getting started on your own gorgeous, peaceful, eco-friendly landscape:

  1. Seek inspiration from books (most of all!), Instagram, Pinterest, and websites. Grab a beer or a cup of coffee (or whatever drink you choose) and settle in with books that are both beautiful and informative, like American Woodland Garden, The American Meadow Garden, and Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes, or spend some time on Pinterest. (This activity isn’t just a great first step toward planning your garden; it’s good for the soul.) Learn what type of landscapes, designs, and plants you connect with most, bookmarking images and taking notes of plants and layouts you like. Is it the photos of dense meadows that make you happy? Do images of fern-heavy woodlands bring you a sense of calm? It might be something simple like a bench surrounded by shrubs, a patio bordered by sedges or a walkway bordered by a blend of grasses and flowers. Plants that work for a cottage in the English countryside won’t be appropriate here in Jersey, but that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve the same vibe with low-maintenance natives. See a non-native you love? Post a comment below and we can help suggest a similar native plant.
  2. Look for inspiration in the wild. Another great way to determine how you’d like to approach your own ecological garden is to learn more about the plant communities in natural areas you love. In the Pine Barrens, for example, you’ll notice a mix of ferns, blueberry bushes, and pines. The sad truth is that we’ve destroyed most truly natural spaces around here, so this isn’t always easy. That said, we highly recommend visiting Mt. Cuba Center and Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve and other managed natural areas that educate and inspire.
  3. Get to know your yard’s conditions: the light, the soil, the challenges. It’s impossible to plan well without really getting to know your space, so take the time to notice how the light changes throughout the day. Do you have a big oak tree that shades a large portion of your yard? Where are those great full sun spots perfect for a bright pollinator garden? Is there a wetter area where rain garden plants like an Elderberry makes the most sense? It’s not easy to admit that a plant you like might not be a good fit for your space, but try to embrace what you have. The more time you spend gardening, the more you’ll learn, but a baseline is what you’re aiming for here.
  4. Sketch out multiple plans (with pencil). This is a good excuse for getting a nice new notebook or journal. Draw a rough sketch of your property, garage, and deck or patio, and start some long-term planning. What would you like to see in 5 or 10 years? We know, for example, that we want a shade and moss garden near the house and gravel patio, and a meadow just about as large as we can make it. We want the privacy a grouping of shrubs (viburnums) between us and our neighbors will eventually bring, and a pollinator-friendly spaces. Try out a few designs, which of course will change and evolve as you go.?
  5. Prioritize areas of your property, focusing on small areas with dense plantings over? a little here and a little there. This is something we didn’t do at first, because we didn’t know as much about ecological gardening as we do now. We’d buy one or two plants of a certain species and? kind of throw them in different spaces based on conditions. As we’ve learned more, our goal has become to create the masses of plants that look good and better serve native wildlife. If you don’t have a ton of money to invest all at once, focusing on certain areas and really filling them out is the way to go.
  6. Make a to-do list, and place invasive removal high on the list. This is the necessary but not fun part of transforming your yard. If you don’t work hard to get rid of your ivy and other aggressive non-natives, your planning work will all be in vain.
  7. Plant shrubs and trees as soon as possible. Oh, how we wish that we’d planted our shrubs and trees before so many of the other projects we prioritized first. Yeah, the rooms needed paint and plaster needed repair, but we would be so much closer to our dream yard if we’d just taken the small amount of time necessary to get those plants in the ground five years ago.
  8. Get your family involved. The more your family understands about what you want to achieve and why, the better the experience will be. Think about the way you create a home inside that’s comfortable and creative and personal. Creating a beautiful and beneficial environment outdoors can have just as significant of an impact: it’s a place to hang out, but it’s also an incredible opportunity for exploration and learning and to do something that’s bigger than you, than us.
  9. Don’t forget ground cover! When planning your garden, don’t forget to incorporate ground cover plants that will eventually eliminate the need for weeding and mulch.
  10. Just do it. Perfect is the enemy of good, and all that. Your garden will evolve. Even if you just focus on a few species you love at first, well, hey, that’s better than what you’ve got now. Don’t let research and overthinking stop you from just doing something.
  11. Keep learning and seeking new ideas and species. One wonderful thing about gardening with natives is that they come back year after year, but you’ll never run out of new plants to try or edits to make.

Spring Blooms at Mt. Cuba Center

When we last made the trip to Mt. Cuba Center, northern Delaware’s native plant showcase, fall bloomers were making their last stand, and trees were shedding their leaves.

It looked pretty different this time around; their woodland-dominated landscape was still bright and sunny in the last weeks before the trees leafed out.? So while most plants were just breaking their winter dormancy, it was a great time to see the spring ephemerals put on a show.? These are the plants that take advantage of the brief window in woodland areas between when the weather and soil warm up and the trees fully leaf out and cast shade over the ground.

toad trillium

Toad Trillium – Trillium cuneatum

Trilliums (a.k.a. wake-robins or toadshades) are the classic example.? They appear in early spring on the forest floor, rapidly complete their full flowering cycle, and enter dormancy as their leaves, stems, and flowers wither away, leaving no trace by early summer.

White Trillium - Trillium grandiflorum

White Trillium – Trillium grandiflorum

Mt. Cuba has a great selection of ephemerals.? Virginia bluebells, Quaker ladies (houstonia), bloodroots, and other species carpet the forest floors.

Other spring flowering plants, like the woodland phlox species, foamflowers, and celandine poppies which were blooming in abundance this weekend, stick around after flowering, and their foliage provides a nice groundcover throughout the summer.

It was also a great time to see other parts of the landscape waking up.? Fern fiddleheads were unrolling everywhere you looked, trees and shrubs were beginning to flower, and leaf buds were opening up.

Bloodroot, foamflower, and trillium

Bloodroot, foamflower, and trillium

 

Ferns unfurl as a small woodland creature darts in the background

Ferns unfurl as a small woodland creature darts by in the background.

 

False rue-anemone (Enemion biternatum) and celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) blanket the ground

False rue-anemone (Enemion biternatum) and celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) blanket the ground.

 

Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) fronds manage to stick around and stay green through the winter, then finally die back just as their replacements emerge

Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) fronds manage to stick around and stay green through the winter, then finally die back just as their replacements emerge.

 

Newly emerged foliage of an oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia)

Newly emerged foliage of an oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia).? First described by Philadelphia’s own William Bartram, this southeast native is at home in mid-Atlantic gardens.


Mt. Cuba Center‘s gardens are open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 am ? 4 pm, April-November 19. We recommend bringing a picnic lunch if you’re headed out on a nice day. Mt. Cuba also offers classes year-round in ecological gardening, conservation, art and more.

Whitesbog Village: Blueberries, Beauty and Feminism

Whitesbog Village building

It’s going to be a cold week with Christmas festivities at the tail end, so I wanted to get outside yesterday despite the rain. We drove about 50 minutes to Whitesbog Village, and it was well-worth the distance and eventual “OMG we’re missing our toddler’s nap window! Now she’s literally pulling her hair out!” moment on the way home.

Whitesbog, a registered national and state historic site, is part of Brendan T. Byrne State Forest. It features a “village” of beautiful old buildings and 3,000 acres of cranberry bogs, blueberry fields, reservoirs, sandy roads, woodlands, streams and trails. Not only that, it’s a site on New Jersey’s Women Heritage Trail due to the work of “Blueberry Queen” Elizabeth Coleman White. She’s the one who brought Jersey blueberries to the masses after extensive research for growth habits, taste, scent and texture.

According to the Whitebog website, White also focused her research on the American holly (ilex opaca). “She even founded her own nursery business?Holly Haven, Inc.?and is credited with having helped to rescue the American holly from obscurity. She was even one of the first members of the Holly Society of America, founded in 1947.”

Volunteers have worked hard for decades to restore and preserve Whitesbog Village, including White’s old house. It’s a gorgeous place to stroll along paths lined with mountain laurel and other native plants, view cranberry bogs, check out White’s original test garden and experience the beauty of the Pines.

 

The Whitesbog General Store was closed yesterday morning, which was a bit of a bummer, because I was looking forward to picking up a few last-minute Christmas gifts. It’s typically open Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 4pm February through December, and carries blueberry and cranberry preserves, honey, candy, books on the Pine Barrens, and items handcrafted by locals.

whitesbog_generalstore

The store and other buildings within the village date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. The largest building, which is basically rubble now, was the packing and storing facility that was damaged in two different fires. In the other adorable buildings, Whitesbog Preservation Trust tells the story of Whitesbog Village and holds events, such as art shows, festivals and a holiday craft fair.

We knew we were in a good place when we walked up to find this awesome banner of a Jersey Devil playing banjo. Whitesbog regularly holds a Blueberry Music Jam, an acoustic jam for local musicians, which I’m hoping Tim will attend, banjo in tow. whitesbog_jerseydevil

The trip was still fun without anything in particular going on and a tiny bit of rain. Speaking of that rain, inspired by a story in the Introduction of a book I’m reading, How to Raise a Wild Child, I let Mae try splashing her boots into the puddles. She’s a kid. She should be allowed to splash in that puddle to see what it’s all about, even if it means she gets a little dirty. whitebog_splash

One highlight was meeting a landscaping volunteer who saw me taking pictures and led me to the most awesome looking fungus. He admittedly isn’t a “fungus guy” so wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he did then proceed to show us all kinds of plants, native and not. He’s most certainly a plant guy, a weekend botanist, as he says.

The volunteer showed us a small American climbing fern (lygodium palmatum), a rare native fern with S2 status, meaning there are only 6 to 20 known occurrences in the state due to habitat destruction.

whitesbog_climbingfern

Speaking of destruction, here’s a photo of the old packing and storing facility, or what’s left:

whitesbog_factory

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, when the more showy flowers of spring, summer and fall die off, some of the other aspects of the landscape finally get time to shine. This evergreen moss, which popped up all over the grounds and trails, is a beautiful contrast to the greys and browns of winter. Seeing it here led me to, once again, look into native mosses that could work in our garden. We don’t live in the Pine Barrens — we don’t have that sandy soil — so while this one wouldn’t work, there are others. But that’s for a later post.

whitesbog_moss_closeup

Looking out from the trails closer to Elizabeth’s old home, the scene is stunning even on the gloomiest day just before winter settles in. I can’t wait to return in different seasons to observe how it changes.

 

whitesbog_cranberrybog

Part of the trails has a boardwalk, which Mae loves, and there is a real range of plant species. The forest of Whitesbog includes sweet gum, pitch pine, red maple, black gum, holly, and Atlantic white cedar.

whitesbog_trailboards

We believe this next photo is of a really old American sweet gum, but would love to be corrected if we’re wrong. Identifying trees without leaves while wrangling a dog and toddler can present a challenge at times.

whitesbog_awesometree

The grounds around White’s house have a mix of natives and non-natives, though as far as I understand, the Whitesbog Preservation Trust’s goal with maintenance is to keep her collection of friendly non-natives healthy, get rid of invasives and add only plants native to the Pine Barrens and this region in particular.

This low-growing shrub, bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), can be found close to White’s house, and is prettier than this photo suggests. It’s a great native groundcover for those of you with that signature Pine Barrens sandy soil. It’s a host plant for the Hoary Elfin, Brown Elfin and Freija Fritillary butterflies, and its bright berries are edible.

whitesbog_bearberry

As always, we have lots of other plant photos to share, and will continue to do so on Instagram. But all in all, it was a great little family adventure. And again, we weren’t even there when one of the many events was happening!

A Fall Visit to Mt. Cuba Center

We’re lucky to have so many public gardens in our area, and even luckier that several of them focus on showcasing native plants.? We recently got a chance to take a trip to one of these: Mt. Cuba Center in the rolling hills of northern Delaware (no, the state’s not entirely flat – there’s a tiny strip of the piedmont running through the northern tip).

With about 50 acres of woodland, meadow, and wetland gardens, plus a rare all-native formal garden, it’s a great place to appreciate the versatility and beauty of natives.? We visited on its last weekend of the season at the end of October (it will be closed through the spring), but even though the biggest blooms of the summer had past, there was still plenty to see.

Oak leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) beginning to show fall color in the woodland garden

Oak leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) beginning to show fall color in the woodland garden

 

Wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) makes a great groundcover long after its spring blooms are gone

Wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) makes a great groundcover long after its spring blooms are gone

 

Muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) on the edge of the meadow doesn't do much most of the year, but it puts on a great show in the fall. I don't think I realized the butterfly was there when I took this picture.

Muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) on the edge of the meadow doesn’t look like much most of the year, but it puts on a great show in the fall.

 

Mae and Lindsay crossing through the hillside meadow area.

 

A wider shot of the meadow

A wider shot of the meadow

 

Seed heads of bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) on the edge of the meadow

Seed heads of bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) on the edge of the meadow

 

Two question mark butterflies (Polygonia interrogationis) doing at best a B- job hiding in the leaves

Two question mark butterflies (Polygonia interrogationis) doing at best a B- job hiding in the leaves

 

One flower that was still blooming profusely was this aromatic aster (Aster oblongifolius 'October Skies').  We planted a whole mess of these in our yard this fall - hopefully they look as good as this in a year or two.

One flower that was still blooming profusely was this aromatic aster (Aster oblongifolius ‘October Skies’). We planted a whole mess of these in our yard this fall – hopefully they look as good as this in a year or two.

 

One of the cool things they’ve been running for a few years is their trial garden, where they test different species and cultivars to see which are most suitable for gardens in the mid-Atlantic.? So far they’ve released thorough reports on asters, coneflowers, baptisia, coreopsis, and heuchera (though not all of them seem to be currently up on their new website).? I’m looking forward to the upcoming monarda and phlox reports.

The trial garden - I think that's part of a bluestar trial you're seeing in the foreground

The trial garden – I think that’s part of a bluestar trial you’re seeing in the foreground

As part of Mt. Cuba’s mission, they try to show the versatility of native plants.? To that end, they’ve tried to combat the notion many gardeners have that natives only really work for naturalistic gardens.? They recently re-did the formal gardens directly next to the house with all native plants.? Personally, I’m more drawn to the naturalistic look (hence our decision not to name this blog Highly Cultivated Roots), but I thought they did a great job.? We didn’t get great pictures of the formal garden, but you can see some photos here on their virtual tour, and read more about how they created them here.

They also offer a wide variety of classes and even a certificate program.

We’re excited about heading back next year – if we’re lucky we’ll be able to swing a spring, summer, and fall visit to catch all of the plants at their best.

 

 

 

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Copyright 2019 Wild Roots | All Photos by Lindsay & Tim Ifill