Planting Plans for spring 2015

Every year brings another opportunity to grow my native plant collection.  This year I'm focusing on 4 areas:  Clean up and replanting around the swimming pool, clean up and expansion of the meadow, replacing the vinca along the driveway and build up a privacy hedge with the neighbor.  After learning a bit about the current conditions, what is already here and what might be expected to grow here naturally, I've put together a shopping list of natives to get this year.

This moss phlox is pretty happy growing along the pool deck,
A good portion of it is on the concrete slab.
The colors can be intense, so I use mostly one color at a time.

The area around the swimming pool is infested with common evening primrose (Oenothera biennis).  While native, there is just too much of it and it is not that attractive close up.  The soil is mostly a fast draining fill with a moderately high pH (ca. 7.5).  Since this is far from native soil I put a greater focus on what would look good growing in this setting.  Since I had already started using this area for plants native to Texas (my wife's home state) I will be adding two of my favorites, Wine Cups (Callirhoe involucrata) and Indian Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella).   I got some seed on a recent visit to the Wildflower Center.  These will be great for the full sun areas and they tolerate alkaline soils.  The moss phlox could use some bolstering up as well.  I am attempting to remove the English ivy from the enclosure and this phlox seems to be a good candidate to fill back in.

This species of wine cups grows close to the ground, filling gaps around taller plants.
Seed requires a hot water treatment and  30  days cold stratification for germination. 

This is the annual species of Indian blanket, Gaillardia pulchella.

Small's Penstemon is long blooming in shady locations.
The contrasting lavender and white blossoms show up at a distance.

In the shadier areas I will be trying out Greek Valerain (Polemonium reptans aka Jacob's Ladder) and Small's Penstemon (Penstemon smallii).  Despite its common name the valerain is actually a native to the of the US.  This had confused me for a while.  Looks like the name Greek valerain is used for a number of species in the Polemonium genus.  One of them with particularly showy flowers, P. caeruleum, is a European native.  P. reptans grows more like a ground cover

I've ordered some more Indian Pink (Spigelia marilandica) for an area in the pool enclosure with more moisture and organic soils.

This cottonwood seedling appeared in the vegetable garden.
I'll transplant it this spring to a moist part of the new meadow.

I have an area that has been overrun with invasives that I am trying to convert to a meadow.  I cleared half of it last year and hope to finish this spring.  After removing the bad guys I am backfilling with native species.  I realize that I'm making more work for myself by trying to kill off invasivies at the same time as introducing new plantings.  By planting mostly shrubs I think I can more easily manage the area with an annual mowing/whacking of the undesirable plants.  For the right way to convert a weedy area to a meadow or prairie check out this link.

Last year I planted an American plum (Prunus americana) and several elderberries (Sambucus canadensis).  This year I will add some chokecherries (Prunus virginiana) and smooth sumac (Rhus glabra).  I also have a Cottonwood (Populus deltoides) seedling to put on the edge.

The pawpaw blooms in early May,
just before the leaves open up.  

Way in the back I have a large grove of Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) trees.  I've been watching them for 2 years and I have yet to see any fruit.  Since pawpaws produce better with cross-pollination, I will be adding a couple of new individuals to the area,  It is possible that my entire grove is really just one clone.  We'll see if this helps, in a couple of years.

These goldenstar have more than doubled in size after a year in the ground.
I'll get some more to speed up coverage.

In the shady area around the driveway I have been ripping out the vinca and replacing it with shade tolerant natives.  I started with foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) and Heucheras and these are taking hold.  In addition to these I've seen some really good results with Goldenstar (Chrysogonum virginianum, aka Green and Gold) in open shade areas.  These are relatively easy to find in a regular nursery, sometimes marketed with the plants that you can walk on.  Another plant that I've used in dry shade is big-leaf aster (Eurybia macrophylla), It has dense foliage and spreads by rhizomes so it should do a good job competing with the vinca.

This shiny summer foliage pf aromatic sumac turns red and orange in the fall.
We'll see how it performs in a shadier location.

The boundary between our nearest neighbor is defined with a double row of white pines.  At 40+ years old they are now limbed up fairly high and not providing much screening.  We have already put in a juneberry (Amelanchier canadensis), hazelnut (Corylus americana) and Hoptree (Ptelea trilfoliata).  There was also a pawpaw already there, doing a pretty good job despite the drier conditions.  We are looking to add some additional shrubs to fill in this gap and obscure the view.  A local native plant nursery has listed maple-leaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) for sale this year.  I've been told that this is a very difficult shrub to propagate.  It does well in shady woods so I'm looking forward to trying it here.  I should get two since they don't self pollinate.  I am also looking to get some aromatic sumac (Rhus aromatica).  The wild form grows 5-12 feet, just the right size for our area.  I already have some of the 'Gro-low' cultivar.  At about 3 feet it is a great ground cover shrub for many difficult locations.

Now with may list in hand, I can hardly wait until spring!

Experimenting with Penstemon

One of my backyard projects was to recover a meadow area from an overgrown mass of invasive species (Multiflora rose, Japanese honeysuckle, Autumn Olive, Tree of Heaven and Bittersweet with some poison ivy, river grape and horse nettle to boot).  Last fall and early spring I went in with a heavy duty weed whacker and a chain saw to cut down the bushes.  I treated the larger stumps with concentrated glyphosphate to finish the job.  

The most common native plant in this area is Wingstem, Verbesina alternifolia, which is a tall nice looking, if somewhat coarse, perennial flower that blooms in late summer.  Since I created a lot of open ground I needed to help with the regrowth by adding some additional native species.  My main reference for plant selection was Native Plants for Wildlife andConservation Landscaping - Chesapeake Bay Watershed.  Plants that I have put in include American plum (Prunus americana), Tall Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata),  Elderberry (Sambucas canadensis), Showy Goldenrod (Solidago speciosa), New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans).  I also picked up some Wild Quinine (Parthenium integrifolium) since it is supposed to be deer resistant. 

White Foxglove Breadtongue are on the left and purple and
white Small's Beardtongue are at the right center of this view.
Both these flowers show well in part shade.

While flipping through the plant lists I realized that I had very little experience with Penstemons, which are very common in meadows.  With the spring native plant sales coming up, I added these to my list.  There are over 250 species of Penstemon, essentially all of which are native to North America, most of them from the western regions.  I focused on eastern species, particularly those indigenous to the mid-Atlantic. 

These are growing in part sun.  The leaves
are opposite and clasp the stem.

The most readily available eastern Penstemon is Foxglove Beardtongue, Penstemon digitalis.  It is a medium tall plant (2-5') with panicles of intensely white tubular flowers for about a month in late spring.  I grew it equally well in both full and part sun.  The flowers seem to be lasting longer in the sunny location. 

This close-up shows the fine hairs that cover the flowering parts.
 The flower is the perfect size for a bee to climb in.

This Eastern Beardtongue is not as leafy.  This specimen
has leaves with edges that roll inward (involute).

Eastern beardtongue, P.  laevigatus, was harder to find.  I eventually found it on-line from Enchanters Garden a nursery that carries many mid-Atlantic native species. Eastern Beardtongue is not a rare species, but it is not as showy as P. digitalis and I believe it is harder to cultivate.  Its range includes the mid-Atlantic and Southeastern states.  It tolerates sun to shade in moist to wet soils.  It has pale lavender to nearly white flowers and at 1-3.5' it is generally shorter than P. digitalis.  Its blooming period is reported to be earlier than P. digitalis, but mine bloomed a little later.  Maybe once these plants are well established the timing will change.

Here you can see the lines down the throat of the flower that act as nectar guides

The leaves of this forest species are broader than
the other two shown here and the stem is leafier. 

The last species that caught my attention was Small's Beardtongue, P. smallii. This plant grows in the mountainous regions of the Southeastern states.  It prefers partly sunny locations.  It is reported to be short lived so I will not dead head it to encourage it to set seed.  The purple flowers are intense and show up well in a shady location.  This is a long blooming species. For me it has been blooming for a month and it looks to go on for a little longer.  I got mine at a plant sale but it is also available from on-line native plant nurseries.

Here the beard on the flower's 'tongue' is very pronounced.

A general problem I'm having with my meadow replanting is deer browsing.  It seems that anything new got chewed on to some extent.  Even the coarse-leaved Wild Quinine got munched.  I have been spraying leaves with hot pepper spray, but the most effective means of protection is to put up a chicken wire cage around the plant.  This is particularly important for the woody plants, once they are large enough they should be safe.  The penstemons were nibbled then left along for a while.  It seems with the appearance of a new generation of fawns everything is being sampled again.