Would you like to have a naturalistic garden of native flowering plants? Have you always thought that a woodland plot or other natural habitat is necessary to grow wildflowers?
Many gardeners have thought positively about these queries, only to abandon the idea because such an area was not available.
On the other hand, many wait to retire to the country, but they do not have the energy to undertake such a project when the time comes.
Yet, if you are willing to create your substitute for a natural garden and be satisfied with the best imitation possible, then you, too, can start to make your dream of a wild garden a realization.
These were the circumstances under which my garden was planned and planted. Year after year, unaffected by weather or insect pests, it is an unfailing source of satisfaction and delight from the time of the first adonis, hepatica, and species crocus until the gardening year ends with gentians, fall crocus, and the wild cyclamen.
Considerable perseverance, imagination, and skill are required to simulate the natural habitats of favorite wildflowers. A pink lady’s-slipper under a pine tree is the popular idea of a wild garden. This type of garden is impossible to imitate because of the restricted requirements of plants of the coniferous forest where these lady’s-slippers grow at their best.
Intensely acid soil which contains a fungus associated with the roots of these woodland plants is a condition that cannot be duplicated artificially. Innumerable efforts of wildflower lovers to transplant these orchids to their gardens fail within five years, usually after two.
Although the strongly acid coniferous forest is difficult to duplicate, the moderately acid conditions of deciduous woods can be achieved so that many wildflowers from such habitats will feel at home.
In preparing a garden for these plants, attention must be given to their needs for light and moisture. Then select trees and shrubs, which form the garden’s backbone and provide shelter for the more fragile wildflowers. Because deciduous trees do not leaf out until spring has advanced, flowering plants beneath them have an opportunity to benefit from the sunlight needed for blooming.
In contrast, include both evergreen and deciduous plants. Relatively small-growing trees, such as the Carolina silverbell (Halesia carolina), flowering dogwood, witch-hazel, birch, pussy-willow, hornbeam, sassafras, hemlock, and red cedar are appropriate.
Thus, flowering crab-apples, Washington thorn, magnolias, Japanese cherries, Japanese dogwood (Corpus kousa), Chinese witch-hazel (Hamamelis moths), and sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) are trees that can be planted to add interest.
Dwarf cypress, Irish yew, leucothoe, andromeda, mountain-laurel, dwarf cuonymus, Japanese holly, azaleas, rhododendrons, blueberry, bayberry, red-vein enkianthus, evergreen barberry (Berberis verruculosa), potentillas, cotoneasters, boxwood, Rhodora, wild roses, spicebush, clethra, and viburnurns of various kinds comprise the shrubs in my garden.
For the wildflowers to flourish, a source of constant moisture was provided by a small bog at one end of the pool and a tiny brook that runs continually from early spring until fall.
The brook was constructed by hollowing out a shallow trench lined with puddled clay from a river bottom. This made it possible to plant wildflowers along its edge, with no danger of being washed out by floods.
This compensates, to a considerable degree, because the brook is not natural. The stream ends in a bed of yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) and Japanese iris, whose roots absorb any excess moisture.
Plants for Boggy Areas
A leaky wall built across one end of the pool provided a suitable bog area for pitcher plants, meadow beauty, cardinal flower, creeping snowberry, and wild calla planted in peaty soil. The surface of the little bog has become covered with sphagnum moss, thus affording pleasant surroundings for the plants. Water-lilies do well in the pool with a few plants of an arrowhead.
Practically every wild plant brought into the garden since it was started about 25 years ago is still flourishing.
Most natives, collected from areas where they grew abundantly, include bloodroot, snow-trillium, bellwort, wake-robin, spring-beauty, yellow violet, yellow lady’s-slipper, dog’s-tooth-violet, blue cohosh, baneberry, and many ferns. Dutchman’s breeches do not grow without some lime in the soil.
Instead, the soil consisted of a heavy day, poorly drained, moist for most of the year, and moderately acid. Over the years, leaf mold and compost accumulation have dramatically improved the soil structure and given a permanent mulch.
Trailing arbutus, bunchberry, and plants that require higher acid soil will not grow in this environment but have been made happy in a natural area elsewhere where pink lady’s-slippers are coming in on their own.
A unique appeal in my wild garden is created when flowers usually found in formal plots are effectively used in this naturalistic setting. The lungworts, Pulmonaria saccharata, the pink Pulmonaria saccharata Mrs. Moon and Pulmonaria Angustifolia are among the earliest to bloom, following Adonis Vernalis, which flowers in early March with the snowdrops.
Spring vetch (Lathyrus vernus) and Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are home among the bloodroots and other natives. The western crythroniurns have become established.
Although blue phlox (Phlox divaricata) is a splendid plant, a more useful one, with blue flowers, is creeping phlox (Pulmonaria stolonifera). Which forms a perfect ground cover. Sweet woodruff is attractive for its flowers and foliage, though it spreads quickly.
Use Ground Covers
Ground covers are essential in the wild garden, where no areas should remain bare. They help to maintain humidity and protect the wildflowers from drying winds. Annual forget-me-nots take over every unoccupied bit of space.
One of the best plants for the shade is epimedium, with barberry-like flowers in yellow, white, red, buff, and pinkish-lavender. Its compound leaves are very handsome, making it an attractive ground cover throughout the season. The dwarf Iris cristata and I. gracilipes are well suited to shady locations.
Although the native wood anemone fails to bloom after transplanting to the garden, other anemones are delightful along the banks of the little brook in early spring. The yellow Anemone ranunculoides, the dark blue Anemone Apennine, the pink Anemone Blanda rosea, and the lovely lavender Anemone nemorosa.
The lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), with bright yellow, shining petals, blooms with the anemones but keeps only a little. The small bulbous roots multiply insidiously, forming large mats which may be temporarily forgotten because the foliage disappears soon after the flowers have faded. Lesser celandine will kill out choicer plants.
The various primroses are all happy in this moist, shady environment. The round heads of lavender or white Primula denticulata come first, followed by the bright Primula roses. Then come Primula caulis, Primula veris, Primula Vulgaris, Primula polyantha, and the choice Primula auricula.
Primula sieboldi alha is very beautiful, with its umbels of large white flowers and distinctive leaves with scalloped edges. It almost forms a ground cover since it increases by runners and seed.
In addition to the western erythronium, the western carnassials also do well in the garden.
Other interesting spring bloomers are shortia, pasqueflower, Lenten rose (Helleborus orientalis), twin-leaf (Jeffersonia diphylla), celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum), double bloodroot, dwarf bleeding-heart, especially the white, European wild ginger and many of the conventional spring bulbs which form sheets of yellow and purple along the paths. English bluebells (Scala nutans) and narcissus W. Primula Milner are particular favorites.
There are always ferns to keep the garden fantastic and shaded. Cardinal-flower, from the bog, sows itself in all sorts of places, some of the best plants appearing in the driest parts of the rock garden in full sun.
Harebells Everywhere
The great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) and its white form are almost pests and have to be pulled out from the brook’s edge. Harebells come up everywhere in crannies among the stones and blossom up to frost. Meadow-rue, rose-mallow, turtle-head, ironweed, and Turk’s-cap-lily are favorites among the tall perennials. The Canada lily has not yet become established.
In August, the delicate flowers of European cyclamen (Cyclamen europeaum) suddenly appear in shady nooks, followed by the Neapolitan cyclamen (Cyclamen neapolitanum), which lasts from September to frost.
This cyclamen makes broad clumps of intriguingly marbled foliage, studded with qualities of pink or white flowers. It is a perfect treasure for a naturalistic garden. The late gentians appear, belated lobelias, the dark blue leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides), blue cupatorium, fall crocus, and colchicums.
The colorful fall foliage of such shrubs as enkianthus and blueberry and the bright fruits of cotoneaster, dogwood, thorn, and crab-apple end the season with a gay note. After a killing frost has taken the last flowers, most of the wild garden is covered lightly with pine needles. This brings the plants safely through the winter.
44659 by Kathryn S. Taylor