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The Deep Middle


Gardening & writing in the prairie echo

How We Talk About Native Plants

2/17/2021

5 Comments

 
In A New Garden Ethic I make the case that any conversation or debate we have about native plants is less about the plants and more about human privilege and avoiding environmental grief; because this is what's really at the core of how we approach the topic, as well as gardening itself, emotions are automatically rich and complex. Gardening is a very personal act, an expressive art, and like the students in my writing workshops, it takes time to learn how to speak to one another about our lives and to do so honestly so we can make constructive changes.

All that being said, I've run out of patience with some native plant proponents who are overly aggressive and hardline in their perspective. Yes, that will sound odd coming from me, someone who will always advocate for 100% native landscapes (please don't argue with me on what native is). The problem is we have folks in horticulture whose identity and livelihood is tied up in seeing plants as either pieces of art or commodities to earn a living from, or both; of course the conversation is going to escalate, it's human nature, especially at the start of a conversation where we all feel like we have something to defend that's intimate. (This is why many equate fundamentalist religion and native plants -- it's easy to feel judged, it's almost pre-built into our pscyhe.) I mean, we can't even discuss renewable energy without hand grenades going off about various socio-economic issues.

I'm never going to mix lots of exotic species into my garden designs, and I'm going to shake my head at overly designed landscapes many times a day, but I also know that even though all of us approach gardening differently (because we all are different), our end goals and desires and concerns are almost always similar: climate change, mass extinction, habitat loss, beauty, resilience, low maintenance, etc.

This is where I want to change how we talk to one another. I wouldn't call it an olive branch, but it's something I've learned talking about climate change: first you have to listen and find points of agreement before you can delve into the issues you see causing problems. A good pun doesn't hurt.

How can we discuss native plants without getting red hot in three seconds? By asking questions where we can find common ground in our own experiences and stories:

1) "Ok, we clearly don't agree about native plant percentages in a designed garden. Let's put that aside. What wildlife do you enjoy seeing in your garden?"
2) "Why do you like to garden? Why does it matter to you?"
3) "What can we do to address climate change and mass extinction in our private gardens, and then perhaps further out into our neighborhoods?"
4) "You love your heirloom daylily collection? Cool. No one's asking you to rip it out. But how can we increase ecosystem function with them? Maybe a ground layer of sedge, purple poppy mallow, or geranium. Maybe late-season flowering perennials that can help cover up the daylily foliage that gets ratty by late summer."

5 Comments

Low Maintenance Garden Myths

2/11/2021

17 Comments

 
Native plants are not low maintenance. You're likely to hear from folks that they are -- that just using natives means you can stand back and let the magic happen.

Your garden is STILL a garden -- an unnatural space that has little resemblance to what your natives plants evolved with in the wild. We're not only talking soil microbes but plant competition above and below ground, not to mention a host of other disturbances that constantly help shift plant communities from year to year and create dynamic stability. Your garden is a pampered space by default simply because 20 plants aren't trying to exist in the same square foot. Your garden needs tending -- but the tending will look different than the regimented, joyless slog that commercials suggest is necessary.

What does low maintenance mean?

1) It does not mean no maintenance.

2) Plants carefully researched to suit the site (soil, sun, slope).

3) Plants carefully researched to match one another in a dynamic community. This means considering seasonal and annual succession, root habit, above ground habit, etc. For more, see our online class "Fundamentals of Garden Layers."

4) Less weeding because you used way, way more plants than a traditional garden -- we're talking plugs on 6-12" centers, perhaps even combined with seeding a green mulch around them. Plus, you count on and want the plants to reproduce to give you more plants for even more ecosystem function.

5) Less watering because you matched plants to the site and to one another. So plants that like it dry are placed in dry conditions, plants that like it moist are placed in moist conditions, etc. The knowledge required goes well beyond a simple plant tag.

6) Plants that don't spread aggressively where you don't want them, creating a monoculture. This means you have to research the plants to know something about their behavior such as: how they propagate, how easily they propagate, in what site conditions, etc.

And the big one....

7) Low maintenance is also about a shift in perception to accepting that plant composition changes over time and we want that. Plants are not marble statues that never move and always look the same. Plants move, proliferate, diminish, self organize, and generally show us what and where they want to be. The problem is in traditional design and horticulture we treat plants like collector items and gardens like canvases, when plants are living organisms interacting often unpredictably with other living organisms, and we are simply managers. How we manage a garden dictates how much maintenance we feel a garden requires.

For example, if you believe plants should never spread and are constantly yanking seedlings, you may think the garden is high maintenance; same goes if you put a moisture-loving plant on a sandy slope and discover you have to water it every two days. Management is different than maintenance. In management we don't obsess over every plant or detail in a bed (no helicopter parenting), but let the plants guide the conversation a little bit more; we can let the plants lead because we researched the plants heavily before installation and studied wild plant communities and understand what they will do in the years to come. Obviously, every garden space is different and we can't predict with 100% accuracy what plants will do in that specific space, but the more knowledge you bring to the table the less maintenance you'll do. Instead, you'll be managing, learning from the plants with patience over the years, never assuming the garden or gardener is a failure if a plant performs in a way you didn't desire it to perform.

Gardens need tending. Even a lush, layered, natural garden using native plants in similar communities that are found in the wild. They shouldn't need fertilizing, watering, annual mulching, heavy weeding, or chemical spraying if you're planting them considering natural layers. But they will need management because things happen: storms, late freezes, voles, extreme drought, extreme flooding, natural lifespan, etc. You'll likely need to mow the space down every spring vs every week if it were lawn -- that is less maintenance off the bat, but not no maintenance. You'll need to thin, add, and replace -- but not constantly and maybe just once a year. 

Maintenance tends to be joyless and soul sucking, a battle of wit and will; management is giving up some level of control and tending the space when it tells you it needs it. In this way management is a constant surprise that some may find challenging,  and others inspiring and in sync with their own rhythm. If you can get to a place where plants are co-conspirators in habitat and design revival, then maintenance will never exist for you.
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Coreopsis tripteris can reach 7 feet tall and spread aggressively by runners in loam (not so in clay). Careful placement and research to inform expectations will dictate "maintenance."
17 Comments

Questions on the Mt. Cuba Coneflower Trials and Pollinators

2/1/2021

32 Comments

 
I've written and erased a version of this post several times the last week trying to get the ideas down right -- this is a complex topic. Ultimately, I just want to ask questions and express some concerns I've not seen addressed elsewhere in my professional circle and see where it leads us (hopefully, somewhere helpful).

I'll say two things first: 1) I'd rather see a garden of coneflower cultivars than lawn or daylilies and 2) I have intense respect for the work Mt. Cuba does. We'd be in the dark without Mt. Cuba, yet this trial is just one preliminary, necessary step forward and not a final clear-cut answer.

If you don't know, the Echinacea trial evaluated coneflowers in the mid-Atlantic based primarily on garden performance -- how the plants grew, looked, and lasted. However, one issue regarding pollinators really stands out to me: the trial noted the number of adult pollinators visiting the blooms of cultivars, and used this to say which would be of best value to adult pollinators. This doesn't fly (pun intended) for a few reasons:

1) What species were visiting the blooms and how were they using the blooms? Until we have these answers we can't even begin to understand value or benefit or what's occurring in the ecosystem. There are nuances to nectar and pollen use, as well as life cycles and habits of various pollinator species, that help us get a much more complete picture of what's going on. I'd also like to know what pollinator species were showing floral fidelity.

2) What is the chemical and nutritional make up of the nectar and pollen? What amino acids (nectar) are being provided and what's the protein content (pollen)? Sure, it may very well be a cultivar is providing something a straight species can't -- or vice versa. There's also the nuance of these things being affected by climate, ecoregion, etc.

3) What's happening to UV markings on petals that plants use to communicate with adult pollinators? What about aromas? What about electromagnetic fields?

4) Tallamy's study a few years back on woody cultivar larval hosts indicated that changes to leaf color (leaf color effects larval host ability), specifically purple,  greatly reduces larvae -- whereas variegation doesn't. Dr. Annie White looked at adult pollinators and flowers (species and cultivars) on herbaceous perennials and found mixed results on her preliminary study, but species plants had the edge. We know double-flowered coneflowers are terrible. However, I still wonder if, by selecting over and over for one trait (bloom color), we're creating a loss of genetic diversity that may translate into increased chances for something to be amiss in the foliage for larvae.

There's still so much we don't understand, especially on a region by region basis. Certainly, I also don't want to see these cultivars placed anywhere near remnant ecosystems that harbor straight species Echinacea, either (which would be my house). To fully understand the above issues will require a significant amount of resources we probably won't ever have; but I think it's as problematic for folks to say something like "see, when we manipulate plants it's all good and may even be better for wildlife" as it is for someone like me to say "we should always use straight species natives no matter what everywhere, every time, period."

And I still believe we can't have this conversation without also considering how we manipulate plants for commercial gain and / or to please the aesthetic desire of one dominate species, along with the messy ethical implications behind human supremacy that readily colonizes plant culture. But I wrote a book on that.

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32 Comments

    About

    Benjamin Vogt's thoughts on prairie gardening in Nebraska. With a healthy dose of landscape ethics, ecophilosophy, climate change,  and social justice.

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    In a time of climate change and mass extinction how & for whom we garden matters more than ever.

    "This book is about so much more than gardening."
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prairie inspired  design

Lincoln & Omaha, Nebraska

Monarch Gardens is a prairie-inspired design firm. We specialize in lawn to meadow conversions as well as urban shade gardens.

Employing 95% native plants, our designs are climate resilient, adaptable, and provide numerous ecological benefits while artistically reflecting wilder landscapes.
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