Native/Invasive

My Spicebush Is Blooming! Wildflower Wednesday April 2016

– Posted in: Native/Invasive, The Secret Garden, What's up/blooming

My spicebush is blooming! Only a mother--I mean, a gardener--could be so happy about the blessed event. See: Well--ahem--yes, they are rather small. Try this:Okay, let's really zoom in: I saw my first spicebushes in 2009 in the Mundy Wildflower Garden on the grounds of Cornell Plantation in Ithaca, New York. There were several of [...]

The Earliest Blooming Native Flower

– Posted in: Mud Season, Native/Invasive

The earliest blooming flower in my garden is a snowdrop, Galanthus 'S. Arnott'. The earliest blooming wild flower is coltsfoot. But the earliest blooming native flower? For that, you have to look up. Way up. Because the earliest blooming native flower belongs to the red maple, Acer rubrum. I am always looking down at the [...]

Tartarian Honeysuckle Chokes Out Spring Ephemerals

– Posted in: Garden chores, Mud Season, Native/Invasive

One lesson I learned from Sara Stein, author of Noah's Garden and Planting Noah's Garden, was that non-native (also called alien) plants typically start growing and blooming before the native plants--at least in North America. That is because the climate they originally came from was milder, or warmed up gradually and consistently, and that is [...]

The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden: Book Review

– Posted in: Book reviews, Habitat gardening, Native/Invasive

I picked up Roy Diblik's The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden from the library shelf because I knew the author supplied the plants for the Lurie Garden in Chicago, working closely with designer Piet Oudolf, and I wanted to learn more about the naturalistic style of gardening that both of these men espouse. Yes, there is [...]

Hobblebush, A Native Shrub That’s Easy To Love: Wildflower Wednesday

– Posted in: Native/Invasive, Plant info

At first glance, I thought it was a hydrangea. But I don't know of any hydrangea that blooms with the trilliums. And the large, exquisitely puckered leaves were unlike any hydrangea leaf I'd ever seen. Turns out it was a viburnum--Viburnum lantanoides--to be precise. This native shrub likes it cool and moist--perfect for northern climates. [...]

Smoke On A Rope: Wildflower Wednesday

– Posted in: Native/Invasive

Driving down country roads on the way to town, I noticed what looked like brown fur in many of the shrubs along the road. I finally realized that the "fur" was actually the seedheads of Virgin's bower, Clematis virginiana, which Prairie Moon Nursery fittingly calls "prairie smoke on a rope." Virgin's bower is a native [...]