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!

A Winter Walk

Seeing as we were having a spell of dry weather on New Year's day, I decided to take a walk through the woods to see what was happening.  Now that essentially all the leaves are gone there's a whole other world of things to see.  Instead of focusing on the foliage, trees can be recognized by their bark, branching patterns and leaf buds.  On the ground level the few evergreen grasses and perennials are easy to find.  In particular, the evergreen ferns jumped right out.  Following are some photos of plant features that I came across.

The buds of this 2 year old seedling are
smooth and reddish brown.

The first place I checked out were some tree seedlings that I identified in the vegetable garden last summer.  Since I already knew what they were I could learn about how they look in the off season and store that away for future reference.


The end bud of the Sycamore was smooth and pyramidal.  Kind of like those of ash trees, but the sycamore has a single false-end bud (not centered at the absolute end of the twig), while ashes have a terminal bud flanked by two smaller, opposite buds.   

Another tree that sprouted in the garden was an Eastern Cottonwood, Populus deltoides.  Here the bud end is true and the scales are visible.  To me the most notable feature is that the year-old wood looks like it has shrunken back. leaving the stem somewhat squarish with wings, or ridges along the corners. 

Cottonwoods are often considered rather messy trees.  This spring I will transplant it into a moist area of the meadow that I am clearing of invasives.

The  dry leaves on this American beech
make it easy to spot in the woods.

Moving into the woods a young American Beech caught my eye.  In the winter these can be recognized by their tendency to hold onto their leaves until the spring and by their smooth white bark.

Another tree that has smooth white bark is the American Hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana.  While the beech has a smooth rounded trunk, The hornbeam's trunk is grooved, giving it a muscular or sinewy appearance.  Another way to distinguish these two white-barked trees is their leaf buds.  The buds of the hornbeam are small and dark brown while those of the beech are orangy-brown, long and pointed with many obvious scales.

Another tree with unique bark is the Hackberry.  Though highly variable many trees develop warty knobs and/or ridges that is easy to recognize.  Despite the unappealing name, the hackberry is a valuable wildlife plant, both as a butterfly host species and for producing a crop of 'sugarberries' in the fall for birds and small mammals.

The bark of the Hackberry is hard to miss.

Looking onto the ground plane I found several different evergreen grasses, which remain unknown.  More easily identified were the several species of evergreen ferns.  The most easily ID'ed was the Christmas fern.  This is a common species here growing mostly in shady moist areas.  

Christmas Fern is 'once-cut' and the pinna (leaf)
has a single lobe that makes it look like a boot.

A much smaller fern common here is the Ebony Spleenwort, Asplenium platyneuron.  This one is found in partly sunny location with average moisture.  Mine usually grow to about 6" long and hide in the undergrowth.

The frond of this Evergreen Wood Fern
appears to have been stepped on,
but otherwise looks pretty good.  

While poking around a steeply sloped area I found a fern that was new to me.  Unlike the previous two species this one was much frillier (thrice divided).  I took a bunch of photos and pulled out my fern ID books to come up with a name.  Turns out that I was an Evergreen Wood Fern, Dryopteris intermedia.  This is a common species in the eastern US, but just not that common to my piece of the woods.  It's relatively healthy green appearance in the middle of winter would make it a good addition to a home landscape.

When ID'ing ferns look on the bottom sides of the fronds for the sporangia or sori.
Their shape and location are distinctive for many species.

An unknown fern growing at the base of a tree.

There was one fern that I could not figure out.  It was small (3-4") and had fairly simple leaves (pinna).  It's grow in a gap between roots of a large tree.  I checked the underside of the frond for sporangia, but none to be seen.  I'll need to come back later in the spring to see how it develops.

I would appreciate any ideas on what this might be.

Underside of fronds shows no additional clues.

The last group of plants I checked on were some vines that I planted last summer.  My property is inundated with Japanese honeysuckle.  While I am trying to remove those I am also adding some native ones to fill the voids,  I put in a native Coral Honeysuckle along a fence in the spring.  It quietly grew to a span of over 6'.  Looking forward to seeing some blooms in the spring.  I also added some cultivars, 'Honey Coral' and 'Sulfurea'.  

Can see some flower buds forming on this Coral Honeysuckle.  OOPS, this is actually
Carolina jessamine, Gelsemium sempervirens.  I think it was a tag mix-up in the nursery.
It was covered with yellow blossoms in 2016.

The leaves of this Carolina Jasmine have turned red,
 but are holding on.

On an impulse I also picked up a Carolina Jasmine cultivar called 'Margarita'.  This species is hardy to zone 7, naturally occuring as far north as southeastern Virginia.  However, this 'Margarita' cultivar is good into zone 6.  So far it is holding onto its leaves.  This one may be too small to bloom come February, but I will be happy if it just survives and starts growing when the weather warms.