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| Packera aurea |
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| Valeriana pauciflora |
Multiply the supply of native plants in gardens, that is. As
I’m prowling through my garden this time of year, admiring flowers and pulling
early weeds, I always find extra plants to pot up. In years past, I’d pot them
up to donate to plant sales. I’m not participating in a local sale this year so
they’re going to friends and neighbors. The two plants shown above were given to me by friends as extras from their gardens.
As I wrote in January, my son’s family has a new yard.
They’re getting beardtongue (Penstemon
sp.) for the mailbox. It’s a tough as nails perennial that is fairly deer
resistant (they have deer). I have two species to share with them: Penstemon digitalis and Penstemon tenuis. As the season
progresses, I’m sure there will be more for them – we’ve been removing nandina
shrubs at their house to create a new area for pollinator plants.
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| Even Max potted up some small trees |
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| Penstemon ready to go |
Several friends who are building their native plant
collections are getting an assortment of extra perennials and shrubs. I love
how I can get extra room for my garden while still making other people happy!
I’m also creating a grouping of native perennials along the
property line with my neighbor. This has to be composed of deer resistant
plants. So far I’ve planted beardtongue (Penstemon),
mountain mint (Pycnanthemum), sedges
(Carex), perennial rye (Elymus), and bushy St. John’s wort (Hypericum densiflorum). Helping to hold
the sloping ground around it is the native dwarf cinquefoil (Potentilla canadensis). As the plantings
grow, I reduce the cinquefoil.
If you’re a native plant gardener, take advantage of new
spring growth to find plants to help other gardens grow. It’s as nice for you
as it is for them. Pot them up with a lightweight mix of topsoil (house-brand
from a big box store is good) mixed with shredded mulch (not dyed) or bagged
soil conditioner. Sometimes I use a small amount of perlite in it. No need to
buy expensive growing mix. Now you’re ready to go forth and multiply the amount
of yards with native plants!
I spent last weekend doing exactly this! I'm rearranging some and so had mountain mint, blue mist flower, swamp sunflower, and a little bee balm to give away. I posted in the free/for sale gardening section of NextDoor, and I had 22 people take me up on it. Some came from my neighborhood (Emory area), but others came from Marietta, Dunwoody, East Atlanta, and Clarkston, which really surprised me. I did my best to help people understand just what they were getting by showing them the giant patch of mountain mint I was chipping away at. People are still responding; I've had about six more this weekend. One man asked what he could do for me in return, and I said he could watch the first talk from the symposium, so I edited my NextDoor post to add the link. I had used "native pollinators" in my post title, so I'm hoping the response indicates growing interest. Unrelated, thanks for last week's link to the other blog; I found useful information on handling pesticide drift. Happy Sunday!
ReplyDeleteGreat post topic. I eagerly offer native plants to anyone who wants them, particularly in my neighborhood where I'm one of the only native plant gardeners. I try to share the easiest to grow plants for new gardeners (native strawberry, chapman's goldenrod, mountain mint...) to ensure success. I'm also a little bit bossy and ask anyone I give plants to not to use pesticides or leaf blowers one them.
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