Author: lwcmartin@bellsouth.net

I love wildflowers.  They make me happy just to look at them. Therefore, it’s not surprising that I have planted a multitude of wildflowers right outside my back door.  But what, really did I plant?  Are these plants wild? naturalized? indigenous? Are they weeds?  There’s a lot of terminology and it can be pretty confusing.  For general purposes, I consider a native plant to be a plant that grows in a place where it first evolved.  

You could argue, of course, that my back yard is not the “place” where these plants evolved and you’d be absolutely right.  But evolving “in the neighborhood” is close enough for me.  There are purists in the gardening world who only grow plants indigenous to a specific region.  I applaud their ambitions but  I’m more casual and eclectic in my choice of flowers and my landscape is a blend of native Southern plants and cultivated varieties from all over the world. Solomon Seal arches over Siberian iris.  Bee balm blooms side by side with English roses and summer phlox makes pink exclamation points against a bank of Asiatic lilies.

My first priority is the beauty of the garden.  But beauty is only one reason (though, in my opinion, the best!) to grow native plants.  Other reasons?

• They are already adapted to your growing region
• They attract native pollinators
• They help preserve the natural ecology of an area

Just because a plant is native to your region does not mean that it will thrive anywhere you put it, though.  You still have to know what a plant likes  (sun? shade? rich, well drained soils? lots of moisture?) to be able to give it the conditions it needs. 

There are generalizations that can be made.  For the most part, woodland wildflowers bloom in spring and like slightly acidic, well drained soils that are rich in organic matter.  Most woodland spring flowers are low growing, small and delicate and include beauties such

as bloodroot, trillium, green and gold, woodland phlox, dwarf crested iris, Solomon’s Seal.  Ferns and shrubs such as native azaleas (deciduous), mountain Laurels and oak leaf hydrangeas should also be a part of a woodland spring garden.

Sun loving natives, in general, bloom in Summer.  They are hardier, bigger and more exuberant than their ephemeral spring cousins and will thrive and bloom in soils that are drier and not as rich as woodland soils.  These include bee balm, purple coneflowers, black eyed Susans, summer phlox and calendula.  Fall wildflowers need similar conditions and include goldenrods and asters.

Growing native plants is really just like growing any other kind of plant, just more fun! (My personal opinion!)  All of the natives mentioned here are perennials, saving you the time, money and effort it takes to buy and plant annuals every year.   So, give them a little TLC when they’re babies, help them get established and put down some good roots and they will repay you with years of color, beauty and joy.

For Kids!

Summer blooming wildflowers are usually abundant enough to pick and do something with.  Here are a few ideas:

1.  Pick some flowers, leaves, and even roots to make your own fantastic creatures.  Just glue them items to a piece of paper, using petals for a skirt, leaves for arms, roots for hair, etc.
2. Use brightly colored petals and rub them on white paper to make colored marks.  You can use yellow petals to make a sun, blue petals to make a sky, real dirt to make dirt and lots of green petals to make trees or grass or whatever.
3. Pick a handful of beautiful flowers with long stems.  Bring them in and put them in a jar of water, cutting the stems until they are the right length.  If you don’t have enough flowers to fill the mouth of the jar and your flowers flop to one side, pick small branches or vines or something to fill in the sides.  Have fun.

I have a small confession to make. I have a hydrangea shrub that I planted about 10 years ago

– and it’s still less than two feet tall.  It looks more like a ground cover than a shrub.  This year it has a whopping 3 blossoms on it! No, it’s not a miniature, though it is small. It’s simply not getting what it needs to thrive. It’s a great example of survival vs. thrival (? is that a word?) In any case, it’s thrival rate is about zero. Of course I could move it, put it in a sunnier spot in better soil, but the optimist in me keeps thinking that this year will be the year for it to thrive. Not yet….

I love hydrangeas, even my little stunted, non-thriving one. They bridge the gap between May roses and the summer perennials and fill in the shady spots where early blooming azaleas began the garden season.

My favorites are two ‘Vince Doolie’s’ (named after University of Georgia’s famed football coach / gardener) that my son, Dave, gave me on Moth
er’s Day several years ago. These babies are thriving and heavily laden with big balls of intense blue. I also have a couple of lace-caps, which are more natural looking and fit into the back woodsy landscape seamlessly. This is also where I grow a few oak leaf hydrangeas, transplanted from my childhood home in Sandy Springs, Georgia. In the front, sunny garden, the white hydrangeas provide a cool backdrop for the phlox, beebalm and daylilies that are beginning to bloom.

Hydrangeas will thrive in well drained soils where they receive (preferably) morning sun and afternoon shade. They don’t like to be planted under trees where the roots compete for moisture. All of this explains why my 10 year old is so scrawny and why I should move it. This year.

It’s best to plant new hydrangeas in spring or fall, but if you are transplanting one, wait until it is dormant. They like a fair amount of moisture and are not shy in telling you when they are thirsty. They simply go limp when they are not getting enough to drink.

It is true that you can change the color of a hydrangea blossom by changing the soil. It is also true that it’s not particularly easy to do it. Judith King, on her excellent website HydrangeasHydrangeas.com, says that the keyis aluminum. If you want a pink bloom, you need to take aluminum OUT of the soil. If you want a blue one, you want aluminum IN the soil. Plants take up aluminum best at a low PH so altering the acidity of the soil is also necessary. Judith suggests that if you’re determined to change a blossom color that perhaps the easiest way to do this is to grow it in a pot where you have more control over the composition and acidity of the soil. One more word about changing blossom colors – a white hydrangea will always be a white hydrangea.

Bringing hydrangea blossoms inside is easy – just cut, put in a vase full of water and enjoy, at least for a day or two before they begin to wilt. Although there are many different suggestions for drying hydrangea blossoms, the only one that works unfailingly, is to wait until they begin to dry, then cut and arrange. Once they feel crisp to the touch, you can pick them and put them in a vase – and you don’t even need water! They will last a very long time before turning brown if you pick them just at the right time.

Every winter, when hydrangea leaves drop and leave bare branches, I promise myself that I will plant more azaleas instead of more hydrangeas. But every June, when those balls of incomparably beautiful blue, pink and purple begin to bloom, I know that my love affair with hydrangeas will continue. Even for that scrawny little ten year old.

Welcome to Nature Based

I’m Laura C. Martin, writer, gardener, cook, artist, crafter, kid-lover! After a long career as an author and illustrator, I’m turning my attention to writing a weekly blog celebrating nature. This blog will include lots of ideas, recipes and suggestions for how we can all enjoy being out of doors. As a (very) enthusiastic grandmother of six, I will also have lots of hints about how to enjoy being outside with kids of all ages.
I’d love to hear from you.
Enjoy!
Laura