A newly renovated corner of the shade bed
When I leave my house by the side door, I follow a brick path that leads to my car. The path goes past an area that used to be a very shady flower bed until the spruce tree in the center died and needed to be removed, allowing the morning sun to fall unimpeded. A maple to the west still provides shade in the heat of the day, which means my shade loving plants are still able to thrive.
As a full shade bed it was fairly easy to maintain, but now that it receives more sunlight it presents a challenge. Several years of neglect have greatly exacerbated the problems of unwanted plants taking advantage of the extra light to establish strongholds. The worst of them is poison ivy. Since the balmy days of February have given way to the frigid nights and blustery days of March, (you read it right, it's not backwards) and long sleeves are still required, I decided it was a good time to tackle the problem, and dug in with a shovel and two types of rakes to expose the network of roots that crisscrosses the bed.
Were I dealing with any other plant, the job would be an enjoyable if monotonous exercise, but the noxious nature of poison ivy requires keeping up a constant guard to avoid contact, and working in very short stints followed by thorough scrubbings. Even the dormant stems and roots contain urushiol, the compound responsible for the itchy rash, and despite being careful I've developed a few spots on my arms.
Honeybees have discovered the peach tree
Painstakingly removing countless poisonous pieces of root from a 15 x 15 ft area really gives one time to think. As I pull on root after root, some of which stretch halfway across the bed, I cogitate on the fact that poison ivy is a native plant that feeds wildlife, but also a toxic invader that must be removed when it encroaches on the yard. It does not neatly fit into the reassuring categories of desirable native and noxious invasive alien species.
In fact, in this instance, I'm busy removing a noxious native from a bed containing many desirable non-natives. The Lenten roses and pulmonaria originated in Eurasia, the liriope and the azaleas in the far East. The Allegheny spurge is a North American native, but the Mid-Ohio Valley is well outside its original range. I added a native hydrangea and fothergilla, but as cultivars I'm unsure of their place in the garden ecosystem. Besides the poison ivy, the main local native species in the bed are the native hackberry, beech, and tulip poplar seedlings that must be removed because they would eventually grow into huge trees, destroy the flower bed, and interfere with overhead power lines.
Tulip season is upon us
Gardening relies on division of plants into categories like native and exotic, invasive and non-invasive, tender and hardy, which allows beginners to make sense of it. Some of these groupings are based on hard reality. For example, your tomato plants are tender and if exposed will be damaged by a killing frost no matter what. On the other hand, there are such things as microclimates, and a frost that kills your neighbors Early Girls might not touch yours. While you can't change the fact that some plants are tender, you can mitigate the effects of weather.
Other categories are more susceptible to interpretation. I've already alluded to the fact that among native plants there are shades of gray. A plant labeled North American native at my local garden center might originate in Mexico, the Pacific Northwest, or Ohio. Many popular perennial flowers seen in local gardens are prairie plants. Such plants aren't, strictly speaking, native to my corner of Appalachian Ohio, but does it matter? Individuals wanting native plant gardens will have to make decisions for themselves how strict they wish to be.
A volunteer quince has appeared
Some categories of plants are confusing because many plants can go by the same name. Take the bamboo that grows on the bank above the poison-ivy infested bed as an example. I've encountered such strong emotional reactions to the plant known as “bamboo” that I don't use this word anymore. (Visit any online gardening group and casually mention that you're considering planting bamboo and witness the extreme reactions.) The reason for the strong feelings is the fact that the only bamboo most are familiar with is Phyllostachys aurea, an aggressive bully that's taken over many a suburban backyard. However, it is only one of a thousand “bamboos,” and mine is another one hardy to zone 6, the graceful Fargesia rufa. It's of another genus and behaves altogether differently, but is nonetheless a bamboo.
The dread bamboo
Common names are often misleading. The Lenten roses pictured above are not roses. Tulip poplars are neither tulips nor poplars. For botanists, red maples are North American native trees with green leaves, but to much of the general public they are trees from Japan with — you guessed it — red leaves. To the landscape professional, crabgrass is Digitaria sanguinalis, but the average person uses the term to mean any grass-like plant that they dislike and is hard to get rid of.
On the flip side, there are the plants with too many names. Is that plant in your yard a myrtle, a periwinkle, or a vinca? Yes! Is that weed ground ivy, creeping Charlie, or Gill over the ground? Yes! Is that tree a tulip poplar, tulip tree, or yellow poplar? Yes! All are correct. It might seem that the obvious solution is to use the Latin binomial in order to demystify names, but to the uninitiated these names sound like gobbledygook and often confuse things even more.
Small but exquisite crabapple flower buds
Luckily, it's all pretty simple if you just start doing it. You won't have to memorize a bunch of Latin, but you'll probably pick some up without much effort. Starting small to avoid being overwhelmed is the key. I recently saw a post whose author had not yet moved to their recently acquired property, but already had a layout and had ordered trees and shrubs to be delivered shortly after their arrival. A very bad plan, and potentially a very expensive one. A much better idea would be to allow your plan to expand with your knowledge.
Last time I wrote about being a dilettante in the world of food production and ecosystem restoration. I spend a lot less time on these pursuits than I do earning money, taking care of basic needs, and spending time with family. The work is important however, and we need lots more people to be casually involved in these tasks. The breakdown of the industrial food system will create many more niches for real farmers, but the real explosion will be in the dabbler category. I would venture that in the future most of us will be involved in some way in producing food or improving the health of our outdoor environs. Starting sooner than later will make for a smoother transition, and the best way to start is to jump right in and get your hands dirty.
You must have had this piece ready to go because I just read the other one yesterday... You may be a dilettante hobby farmer with an encyclopedic memory for plants and a comprehensive knowledge of best-environmental practices, but you are no dilettante writer. All your stuff is filled with learnings and beautiful sentences. I did not know hydrangeas were native... They are a hugely popular, maybe the most popular, flower in Japan.