PERENNIAL FOCUS

BOBBIE SCHWARTZ, FAPLD Bobbie’s Green Thumb

Photo courtesy of BrightView Landscape Services.

THE HOLIDAY BOOKSHELF

2020 EDITION

Winter and the holidays are coming all too quickly. If you are looking for books to give as holiday gifts, I have some suggestions for you.

NATURE’S BEST HOPE: A NEW APPROACH TO CONSERVATION THAT STARTS IN YOUR YARD

Tallamy, Douglas W., Timber Press, 2019 Portland, Oregon

Those of us in the green industry are more aware than the average homeowner of the environmental threat posed by climate change. I’ve recently read frightening statistics that demonstrate that we are losing species of flora and fauna at an alarming rate due to climate change. While various government entities are slow to move, Doug Tallamy posits that we, as individuals, can turn our yards into conservation corridors that will provide habitats for wildlife. Most habitat now is too fragmented to sustain one species, much less biodiverse species. “Creating biological corridors will enlarge the populations of plants and animals within protected habitat, enabling them to weather normal population fluctuations indefinitely.”

Tallamy tells us that conservation approaches of the twentieth century, i.e. preserves and national parks, are not nearly enough to save biodiversity. Conservation has to be everyone’s responsibility. We need to redesign public and private landscapes that convert at least half of the area now in lawn to attractive landscapes that are packed with plants and contribute to local ecosystems instead of destroying them. continued on page 10

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Changing the lawn mindset will not be easy because, for three hundred years in America, lawn has been a status symbol that signified wealth and good citizenship. Doug believes that two factors can help us change the lawn culture: the cost of irrigation and ecological landscape design that reduces lawn, adding native plants wherever possible, and, eventually, using lawn as pathways only.

This ecological landscape should not be confined to the back yard. Good design is acceptable to everyone. It could be as simple as adding one oak tree to the front yard. Although there are studies about ecosystem functionality, most of us do not realize that the stability and ability of this functionality is related to the number of species in it and the coevolved relationship between the flora and fauna. It is imperative, therefore, that we designers create ecosystems, not just landscape decoration.

Most people are disdainful of insects even though they sustain the earth’s ecosystems by sustaining the plants and animals that compose the ecosystems (Tallamy elaborates on this statement). When native plants are destroyed and/ or replaced with introduced plants, insect populations are greatly reduced. Tallamy cites many different studies in his book but one that I was particularly interested in was about the difference in the fat content of berries that birds eat in the fall to make up for the loss of insects. Those of introduced plants had far less fat (necessary to survive the winter) than those of native plants. One of the native plants cited in the study was Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa), a plant that I love and use in many of my designs for its site adaptability and its seasons of interest. Sadly, this dogwood is not used nearly enough. Although the species is quite large, there are several cultivars that I find quite useful.

We need plants to sustain insects and animals but which ones do we need the most? Tallamy says that we should focus on enhancing the populations of insects that have the greatest impact on terrestrial ecosystems: those that are the most edible and most nutritious and those responsible for most of the pollination required by plants. Therefore, we should be focusing on caterpillars, sawflies, and native bees. Since caterpillars are the mainstay of most bird diets, we need to know which plants are the best hosts for caterpillars. This will vary by locality but fortunately, there are tools that we can all use. This will vary by locality but fortunately, there are tools that we can all use. We can go to the National Wildlife Federation website and just put in “native plant finder.” The ranked list of plants that support the most caterpillars, both woody and herbaceous plants, will pop up for your zip code, wherever you are in the country. The Audubon Society has created a similar website.

The research has found that there are a few “keystone” genera – Quercus (Oak), Prunus (Cherry), Salix (Willow) – that remain the same across the country. Not being an entomologist, it never occurred to me that caterpillars crawl off their host plants before pupating and that we need to provide a safe space for that developmental stage. Caterpillars evidently need leaf litter in which to spin their cocoons but if they drop off a tree surrounded completely by lawn, they need to crawl further. The answer is surrounding our trees with groundcover or shrub and perennial beds.

Native bees need nesting sites, flowers in bloom throughout the seasons from which to gather nectar and pollen, and water. The majority of native bees nest in the ground but, if you believe as I do that the notion of fall cleanup is antithetical to nature’s cycles, you will be doing a favor for the bees that nest in the pithy stems of perennials.

Going back to the notion of ecological landscape design, Tallamy envisions a Homegrown National Park that is composed of multitudinous properties, many of them in the suburbs and quite small. A starting place has been the National Wildlife Federation program of certified wildlife habitats. To be eligible, one must be able to check off a list of attributes. However, this does not mean that the gardens are well designed. I believe that is the next step and, in many instances, it means changing the regulations of homeowners associations. What can we as individuals do? Tallamy lists ten steps that each of us can take.

This book is a mere 254 pages but not one that you can breeze through. It is quite thought provoking and one you should definitely read if you want to be involved in making our world a better place – for us and for future generations.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve you this past year! It has been a very trying year, with a lot of uncertainty and together we made it through it! We are looking forward to growing our relationship next year, and we are constantly ‘growing’ for you!

Check us out on the web at www.davistreefarm.com sales@davistreefarm.com

6126 Neff Rd. Valley City, OH

PH: 330-483-3324

Fax: 330-483-4483

PLANTING THE NATURAL GARDEN

Oudolf, Piet and Gerritsen, Henk Timber Press, 2019 Portland, Oregon

Two early advocates of the naturalistic garden, Piet Oudolf and Hank Gerritsen, are well-known to those of us in the perennial world. This book was originally printed in 1990 but has now been updated and revised according to the experience gained since then. Both men are garden designers who believe that careful selection of plants is needed in order to create a palette of reliable plants that look wild but require minimal maintenance. They also believe that we should use plants that are ecologically sensitive to the site while enhancing or hiding architectural features and/or creating an emotional atmosphere. The first half of the book is an encyclopedic list of the perennials and grasses that they believe are most useful in naturalistic gardens. The list has been revised to focus on lower maintenance plants. The second half of the book discusses plants that can be characterized by particular traits and used to achieve specific effects. Each section is followed by a list of perennials and grasses that epitomize these traits and effects. I love the addition of “Scatter Plants” that give a garden a spontaneous appearance, thus helping to give a sense of rhythm.

In all their designs, great emphasis is placed on using the structure of plants, both in and out of flower, as well as contrasting textures with foliage and flower or inflorescence. One of the hallmarks of their design is the use of plants with excellent winter silhouettes as well as structure and seedheads for wildlife.

In addition, they point out that color establishes mood and they give examples to demonstrate that a tranquil scheme does not have to be boring. Masses of perennials frequently have “weight” that can be alleviated and contrasted with the lightness of masses of ornamental grasses. continued on page 12

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Many gardeners are enthused in the spring but lose interest by late summer. Oudolf and Gerritsen supply a list of late summer and fall bloomers and encourage planting them among spring bloomers so that the space does double duty. They firmly believe that gardens should not be boring in the fall. Near to my heart is their admonition to avoid the gloom of autumn by eschewing the notion of fall cleanup, i.e. cutting everything down.

At the end of the book, some of Piet’s and Henk’s planting plans are included with plant lists. They are both an insight into their methods of design and demonstrate some of the combinations that they love. The combinations make use of plants that flower at the same time and that have the same ecological requirements.

Throughout the book, all points are beautifully illustrated with excellent photographs. This book, like their others, is quite inspiring and applicable to all of our gardens.

THE MODERN COTTAGE GARDEN: A FRESH APPROACH TO A CLASSIC STYLE

Loades, Greg Timber Press, 2020 Portland, Oregon

What is a modern cottage garden? Greg Loades defines it as a mix of the best of the traditional cottage garden and the best of the new perennial garden. I love his secondary definition: a gardener’s garden, one for the person who can’t resist plants. The traditional cottage garden speaks of romance and nostalgia while the new perennial garden (epitomized by Oudolf and Gerritsen) incorporates ornamental grasses and perennials that offer interest long after their petals have fallen.

The Loades garden is both classic and contemporary and celebrates diversity through love of plants rather than through deliberate design. I am reminded by that comment of a visit in the early 1990s to England. I was conversing with a nursery owner’s wife. Their house was on the nursery property and she was talking about the garden that, to my eye, was quite wild. She characterized it as a typical English cottage garden that was not the American romanticized version – no design, merely the result of happenstance. A friend would give her a plant and she would stick it in wherever she could find space.

Loades speaks of the traditional cottage garden as a pastel, organized chaos where plants are allowed to seed willy-nilly and the peak season being the intersection of spring and summer. It is also a wildlife and pollinator friendly garden so full that herbicides are not needed to control weeds. This is not a garden for those who need an ordered garden; rather, it is low maintenance because plants are allowed to mingle. It is not, however, a no maintenance garden because the seeders need to be edited and vigorous perennials need to be divided. Without this early maintenance, charming becomes messy and aggressive plants will dominate to the point where diversity will be eliminated. Keep in mind that this garden includes bulbs, roses and shrubs, not just perennials.

In contrast, the new perennial garden doesn’t come into its own until mid-summer and fall. It undulates and offers the contrast of wispy foliage, tough perennial seedheads and structure, and more striking color. Although it looks naturalistic, it is actually painstakingly designed, at least at the beginning, to emphasize structure, form, shape, and texture. It also stays intact through most of the winter. Elements of the chaotic cottage garden do assert themselves eventually, thus fostering the notion of naturalism.

The author regards the new cottage garden as an evolving garden. To me, that is what a garden should be. Gardens are not meant to be static although many people pay a lot of money for sterile landscapes that involve a great deal of maintenance. Heaven forbid that they get the least bit messy! (This is my opinion, not the author’s.) Loades suggests that the underlying principles of creating the new cottage garden are designing for spontaneity, curiosity, embracing change in the garden, planting in small groupings if the space if small, and planning for all seasons.

I was surprised that Loach questioned the need for lawn but Doug Tallamy would probably hug him. If it isn’t needed for athletic endeavors, he suggests reducing it to a network of paths among planted areas, particularly curvilinear paths that add a natural flow and make the garden look larger.

There is a whole chapter on using and planting containers as a way of augmenting a garden or of having a garden above ground instead of in ground. Loach sees container gardening as a great way to experiment with combinations and as a way to combine plants that don’t have the same cultural needs.

The second half of the book consists of “A Year in the Modern Cottage Garden” in which Loach delineates the beauty of each season and the chores entailed to keep it looking good. That is followed by his list of fifty essential plants for this type of garden. My only caveat is that Loach is English and some of the plants he mentions are not hardy for those of us in northern Ohio. I think you will enjoy this well-illustrated book.

Lots of food for thought in these three books. So, fix yourself a delicious drink, find a comfortable chair, and settle in for a good read.

Bobbie Schwartz, FAPLD, owner of Bobbie’s Green Thumb in Shaker Hts., Ohio, is a landscape designer, consultant, freelance writer, and lecturer whose specialties are perennial gardens and four season landscapes. In addition to being an Ohio Landscape Association (OLA) member, she is an active member of the Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association (ONLA) and Perennial Plant Association (PPA) and Past President of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD).