Gardening with native plants is simple gardening. There’s seldom reason to think about winter-killing, severe insect or disease damage, fertilizers, or cultivation.
While you probably won’t feel a change to wildflower gardening sufficient reason to throw out the shovel and the hoe, you most certainly will be impressed with the permanence and easy maintenance of native plants.
Once such plants become firmly established, they can take almost any dose of drought or rain and appear to like it. If invasive weeds should gain a foothold, they must be rooted out, of course, but this need arises far less often than you might expect.
The one absolute requirement of a permanently successful and satisfying wildflower garden is a realistic, commonsense attitude on the part of the gardener, plus a realization that the most desirable plants usually have basic likes and dislikes, which must be met front the beginning.
Suppose we look at these latter factors, more or less in the order of their importance.
Many of the most attractive native perennials are woodlanders. While they are accustomed to moderate spring sunshine before tree leaves come out, they resent more than a daily hour or so of direct sun from mid-spring until fail. Unless these notions are satisfied, you’ll be courting trouble.
You can provide a suitable environment by supplementary planting trees and shrubs to create shade in an otherwise sun-soaked situation. This must be done before your main plantings are made.
What Wildflowers Prefer
Other wildflowers have opposite ideas and ask for plenty of sun. These are the wisest selections if your area is sunny during the warm months.
Remember, though, that in the wild state, most of these sun worshippers have a variable amount of shoot shade supplied by grasses or other low vegetation the night of the summer and that comparatively few can take the extreme sunlight of exposed rock crannies and pockets without some damage.
The largest group of desirable wildflowers is composed of plants tolerant of both sun and shade, provided neither is excessive.
If your area is average in this respect, start with this half-and-half class. Then, as you gain experience, experiment with some of the plants in the two preceding groups. Thus, over time, you can establish a surprisingly varied collection of plants living in harmony and general happiness.
The Best Soil Condition
From the standpoint of physical character, soil for most native plants should be reasonably loamy, gritty, and heavily stocked with natural humus such as leaf mold or finely crumbled peat moss. Bog plants prefer heavy soil and alpines like an extra dose of coarse sand or pulverized rock fragments.
Do not enrich any wildflower soil with materials that increase general garden fertility. Our native plants seldom respond well to such stimulation.
Remember, they have done very well for centuries without man’s help and are likely to be thrown entirely off balance by an unnaturally rich diet.
Soil’s Acidity
The soil’s acidity should always be considered, although too much emphasis has been laid on this point in the past.
It seems well-established that all ericaceous natives, such as rhododendrons, azaleas. Katniss and heaths do best in and require strongly acid soil with a pH as low as 4.5 and not higher than 5.5.
A similar situation applies to several other wild plants, including the following:
- Pyrolas
- Pink lady slipper (Cypripedium acaule)
- Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis)
- Various clubmosses
- Chimaphila or Pipsissewa
As a rule, all plants that grow under deciduous hardwoods (oak, hickory, birch) and mixed deciduous and evergreen trees tolerate, if not demand, acid soil.
Desirable plants which require firmly alkaline conditions are few; the list is limited to those found growing on limestone, either crumbled or in solid rock form.
Most of the plants you are likely to want will be satisfied if the pH of the soil is around the neutral point, from 6.5 to 7.5.
Drainage
Drainage is as important for native plants as it is for those used in more sophisticated types of gardening, and for the same reasons. The great majority of plants need air and moisture underground to carry on their normal growth processes.
They are checked, if not gradually killed, by persistently damp—stagnant conditions around their roots. The low-ground and swamp dwellers are the only ones who can endure wet feet all of the lime. Frequently, even these will do all right in drier, better-drained places titan they are supposed to need.
As a general rule, therefore, your wildflower garden ought to be well-drained, and if half or more of its area is sloping, so much the better. More worthwhile native plants prefer a slope than like to grow in flat or low-lying places.
Exposure
Cast and west are similar as an exposure for the garden, but if you work with uneven ground and arrange for some northern and southern exposures, you have a definite advantage.
It is possible to extend the flowering season of any of the early spring bloomers as much as a week by planting some of your supply isn’t warm south-facing spot and others in a northern exposure where the sun’s rays are less concentrated.
In northward-facing areas, too, you will find your best chance of success—natives whose natural habitat has a climate considerably cooler than yours.
Determining The Wildflower Culture
There is no foolproof way of determining the requirements of each species concerning any of the preceding factors. However, your observations of plants growing in the wild will tremendously help if you familiarize yourself with their habitats.
Most of the leading hooks on wildflower identification also provide good clues, and some of the catalogs of native plant dealers contain helpful and reliable information on culture.
Drawing on all such sources and your common sense will take a little while to acquire the knowledge necessary for thoroughly worthwhile results.
Obtaining Desirable Species
Where to obtain the plants? Well, several reliable dealers either propagate their own stock or grow collected plants under cultivation for a time before selling them. These concerns can supply a good variety of desirable species.
Suppose you have opportunities for it, collecting your plants from the wild is fun. And, provided you take certain precautions, it is highly successful and in keeping with sound conservation practice.
First and foremost, though. Make sure your collecting activities do not violate any state conservation laws. Then, having assured yourself of this, be guided by the following principles:
- Take up practically all of the root system, keep the entire plant damp and replant promptly.
- Leave at least six plants for everyone you collect unless the stand is doomed by approaching road construction, building development, drainage project, or other inevitable destruction, which justifies you in rescuing as many as you can.
- If the plants are on private property, explain your plan to the owner and obtain his permission before you start.
- Don’t tell all your friends where you have been; don’t urge them to go there and help themselves.
- Provide soil and other growing conditions similar to that from which the plant comes.
The most constructive and satisfying method of obtaining an ample supply of the particular plants you want is to grow your own from seed and cuttings. Layers, root divisions, or other conventional methods of propagation.
Cultivating Garden Plants
This is easier than with the general run of cultivated garden plants. The procedures and materials are practically identical except that, in my experience, late winter and early spring seed sowing in the house or tinder glass is too tricky to be depended upon.
To give you an idea of the results you can expect from following rut-titer’s basic principles under controlled conditions, it is possible to obtain several hundred seedlings of trailing arbutus from seed sown in a single flat to flower them in three or four years. A similar number of cardinal flowers will begin to bloom in their second year from seed.
Using Cold Frame For Propagation
A substantial cold frame equipped with slat sunscreens and a regular sash is essential for the best results in the home propagation of wildflowers. If you plan to use cuttings and seeds, get a 2-sash frame and divide it with a tight board partition.
They are installed under the center support bar. Thus, one side of the frame can be used for cuttings and the other for seeds, each operated to provide the conditions most favorable to its content.
Coarse, clean sand or a sand and peat moss mixture can root most cuttings. One-third of each sand, loam and leaf mold or delicate peat moss forms a traditional sowing medium for seeds.
For acid-soil plants, the humus portion of the mixture should be strongly acidic; oak leaves that have rotted just enough to lose all semblance of foliage are excellent for the purpose.
Whether you buy or collect your perennial wildflower seeds, sow them at once, regardless of the season. This is nature’s way. There is no more straightforward plan than to follow her lead and even improve on it by providing better storm, rodent, and insect protection through the frame.
As with most cultivated garden plants, rooted cuttings, divisions, and seedlings of will flowers should be transplanted at least once before entering their permanent locations.
Personally, I prefer to make the first shift bun individual pots which are then plunged to their rims in damp peat moss and kept moderately moist until the roots have filled their containers.
44659 by Robert S. Lemmon