Two gardens, one in full sun and the other a shaded landscape, will be featured in a “South of the River” residential garden tour June 22, sponsored by Wild Ones Twin Cities. Local chapter members grow native plants, shrubs and trees and use techniques to create natural habitats for wildlife.
The first stop will be at the yard of Roberta Moore, of Apple Valley. Moore was involved in the Apple Valley Garden Club before discovering how native Minnesota plants could boost enjoyment of her nearly half-acre lot. Just ask the more than 30 bird species that drop in for a drink and a beak full of berries. One pair of goldfinches liked her yard so much; they decided to nest in a hanging basket this spring.
Moore doesn’t own a cabin, so she decided to make her house her “cabin” in the woods.
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“You don’t have to leave the city to have places for birds to eat, and nest, and forage,” Moore said.
Native plants can be integrated with conventional gardens to provide more habitat for the three “B’s” — birds, bees and butterflies. For example, Moore kept her hostas, but added columbine, butterfly weed, along with native grasses and ferns. Passersby love touching the softness of the lamb’s ear leaves planted along the sidewalk, she said.
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One advantage to native plants is they thrive in their natural environment without fertilizer and extra hand watering, resulting in less maintenance and conservation of water resources.
Moore noticed others following her lead. “You can influence your neighbors,” she said. Trees and wetlands seem to get a lot of attention. "What hasn't come back as much is the shrub layer, the understory layer and that, to me, is something so easily done in the 'burbs."
Native trees and shrubs can turn even a non-gardener into a successful gardener. Moore worked with Mike and Pat Stevesand of Burnsville to introduce serviceberry, wahoo and pagoda dogwood trees to their sun-kissed backyard. Pat started the process by not watering the grass. Where the grass died, she turned over the soil and that became her butterfly and bird garden.
“No matter how much water I put there, it was a waste of water,” Pat said. In place of the dead grass, she planted native plants and shrubs that thrive in the sunny location. Mike likes having less to mow and fertilize and spends his time instead building birdhouses and garden accessories.
Now, a pileated woodpecker lets them know when it’s hungry. Hummingbirds buzz among the columbine and robins sit in the serviceberry tree to devour the fruit.
“It’s so much fun to watch them go through it,” Pat said.
Both gardeners admit that some of the plants or shrubs are not particularly beautiful, until you see their purpose in the ecosystem. More than a dozen Monarch caterpillars emerged from their cocoons and are growing on milkweed in the Stevesand’s yard. Nearby, the painted lady butterfly larvae are getting ready to bust out of their wombs of leaves and silk in the pearly everlasting shrub.
“What if everyone planted one native shrub? We can make a difference in little ways,” Stevesand said.
A challenge is finding the native species stock for sale. Some local garden centers carry a few native plants or trees, but Moore and Stevesand wish they carried more. They frequent businesses that have a larger inventory, such as Out Back Nursery and Landscaping in Hastings. When Moore wanted to add lady slippers to her garden, she went to Knecht’s Nurseries and Landscaping in Northfield, which sells yellow lady slippers that have been “rescued” from impending construction zones.
To learn more about native gardening, Moore and Stevesand suggest a list of recommended reading, such as: Got Shade? by Carolyn Harstad; Landscaping with Native Plants of Minnesota, by Lynn Steiner; Birdscaping in the Midwest, by Mariette Nowak; and Bringing Nature Home, by Douglas Tallamy.
If You Go
The “South of the River” Wild Ones tour is free and open to the public, but an RSVP is requested.
Time: 6:45 pm to 8:45 pm
Date: Wednesday, June 22
To register: call (612) 293-3833 or email info@wildonestwincities.org
More information is available at www.WildOnesTwinCities.org
