Cold Climate Gardening

In 1878, Sherman Stowell sold to Elizabeth Brockett 30 acres of land which he had earlier purchased from George Jennings. I now live and garden with my family on some of that land, which Jennings or Stowell, or perhaps Ms. Brockett, had cleared of trees to make pasture. The forest is growing back, but it’s not the same forest. For one thing, several invasive plants are now growing here, everything from Rosa multiflora to Lonicera tartarica. And where are the trilliums?

Call me a romantic or call me ecologically correct, but I’d like to restore the native flora to my parcel of land, land that was sown to timothy and grazed by cows. How does one go about such a restoration? For starters, you have to know what plants were originally growing there. I’ve taken an informal survey of our property and catalogued all the natives I’ve found. I mention trilliums because they bloom along the roadside further down our country lane. What will it take to grow them here?

Popularity: 20% [?]

If you want to learn more about the plants native to your area, a good place to start would be The New England Wild Flower Society Guide to Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada by William Cullina. He has done a good job creating a general reference work that can help both novice and advanced gardeners, whether they are attempting habitat restoration or just looking for plants that will do well in a problem area (too wet, too dry and the like).

Not only does he avoid preaching, but he also recognizes that not all of his readers will care to limit themselves to plants native to their region:

While I encourage you to grow and appreciate the plants of your area, I know that we all as gardeners like to seek out the challenge of something new and different, so whenever possible I have included information to aid you in growing a particular plant outside its native range.

In fact, all the information he provides seems aimed to enable you, the gardener, to successfully grow native wildflowers, no matter what your underlying philosophy. His section on Ecological Gardening could be renamed Sensible Gardening, as it discusses the various conditions necessary for plant life and how to best match plants to the conditions at your site. If you’re completely new to the whole idea of habitat gardening, a map will help you locate your floristic province, which is discussed in the pages following the map.

Popularity: 10% [?]