RETURN OF THE NATIVES
by
Sharon Lovejoy
I'm up to my earlobes in garden catalogues and feeling happy and hopeful despite howling winds and lashing tree branches.The weather broke just long enough for me to run outside and fill bird feeders, stuff suet treats in the chickadee baskets, and clean birdbaths clogged with leaves and pine needles. The pathways and beds were littered with cones and twigs and broken branches.
I headed for the garden shed to grab the rake and clippers, but before I walked 10 steps, the skies opened and forced me back indoors to the fragrant warmth of an almond wood fire. Circumstances of nature excused me from tidying the gardens and allowed me the luxury of a long, quiet morning of reading plant lists and the quiet companionship of two old dogs.
I am always amazed by the quality of catalogues and the vast store of information each has to offer, sometimes for free, sometimes for just a few dollars. I am on a quest for native plants to integrate into my gardens at Seekhaven and for my native garden at Heart's Ease, so my attention has been focused on information from the National Wildflower Research Center and Larner Seeds.
I chuckled as I read the Larner catalogue's introduction: "A plant is not a couch," wrote Judith Lowry, founder of Larner Seeds. "Many people are victims of plant anxiety. They want to know exactly what will do what and where. Gardening is not interior design, and the great part is, there are no absolute certainties...plants are not furniture." I realized that just an hour before, when confronted by my messy yard, I had been suffering an undiagnosed case of "plant anxiety" trying to keep my gardens as under control as my living room furniture.
Two plant lists were growing on the notebook perched on my catalogue rich lap. The list for Heart's Ease included a rainbow tapestry of annual wildflowers and graceful grasses to carpet around all of the native perennials planted last winter. The annuals would provide a rich source of nectar for butterflies, beneficial insects, and hummingbirds, and a cargo of seeds to feed hungry birds and to drop for future generations. My Seekhaven list included more shade-loving shrubs and nectar and berry plants to charm the birds out of the sky and the critters out of the hills.
A stack of catalogues and my lists slipped to the floor as I reached for the binoculars on the windowsill and focused them on the fountain. The old fountain was ringed with juncos and a sapphire-blue Steller's jay taking turns bathing and preening. I scanned the gardens and realized that my 11 year investment of sweat equity, integrating natives into a 50 year old garden of exotic species was finally paying dividends. Toyon (a native holly), heavily laden and drooping under the weight of brilliant red berries, was alive with the comings and goings of plump, singing robins. Thickets of currants, gooseberries, coffee berries and blackberries lured thrashers, jays, thrushes, and sociable coveys of quail to find shelter and food. Elderberry bushes enticed keening flocks of cedar waxwings from the sky to feast on their dusty, blue berries. The waxwings (named for the spot of red on each wing) gorged on the berries and splashed the ground with their inky, blue droppings before they moved off in a noisy wave. The red-capped acorn woodpecker and smaller Nuttall's woodpecker probed their way up opposite sides of a native oak tree as a tiny, needle-billed brown creeper stitched an upside down route in a crevice of Monterey pine bark. I settled back in my chair and picked up the National Wildflower Research Center list of recommended plants for my area and added native scarlet columbines for the hummingbirds and an Aristolochia vine for butterfly larvae and tidy tips for checkerspot butterflies.
I finished my plant lists and drawings, closed my notebook, and restacked catalogues with a sigh of satisfaction. A stormy winter morning spent sowing dreams and ideas had yielded dozens of plant and habitat possibilities for future gardens. Possibilities for conserving water and restoring the unique flora and fauna of my coastal foothills (starting in my own backyard). Possibilities for creating habitats that will bid a congenial welcome to migratory birds and animals looking for their natural food supplies. Possibilities for larval and nectar food sources for rapidly diminishing native butterflies and for attracting native beneficial insects that will help to keep the gardens healthy without the intervention of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides. Possibilities for me to sit and watch and enjoy the quiet complexities and interactions of a native garden without feeling the need to organize, arrange, rake and groom.
After all, "plants are not couches," and I refuse to suffer any more unproductive bouts of "garden anxiety."
How You Can Plan For A Return of the Natives
1. Open your eyes to native plants in your area. Note their growing conditions.
2. Select your garden site and draw a plan.
3. Weed site so natives don't have to compete with invasive species.
4. Natives appropriate to your garden site may not need any soil amendments (the beauty of properly selected native species).
5. Establish plant communities by grouping together species with the same site and soil requirements.
6. Diverse species of plants in a native garden will attract diverse species of native butterflies, beneficial insects, birds and mammals.
7. Native plants are adapted to available water in their own habitats. Thus, if you live in an area with prolonged periods of drought, natives will survive, but only after they are thoroughly established.
8. Make use of the wealth of information in good catalogues. Information is the fertilizer for exciting garden adventures.
Sources
Larner Seeds
P.O. Box 407
Bolinas, California 94924
(415) 868-9407
(catalogue $2.00)
National Wildflower Research Center
4801 La Crosse Ave.
Austin, Texas 78739
(512) 292-4100
Clearinghouse packets recommending natives for each state, seed and plant sources, bibliography and information on wildlife gardens. $10.00.
Copyright 1996, Sharon Lovejoy
