Crisfield Gardener is Going Native
- Nuts for Natives
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Seven years in, seeds, salty air and lots of sun make for a garden sizzling with life!
Pat Valdata, a poet and novelist, is all in on natives and landed in the perfect spot for it seven years ago. She moved south to the most charming spot on a creek just outside Crisfield. Her new home had one garden bed, a heath plant, some English hollies (Ilex aquifolium), lots of lawn and iconic Eastern Shore views. She first learned about bees, taking an on-line class from the Ohio State University Bee Lab. Pat quickly realized plants were the key to supporting those native bees and never looked back.
She started so smartly, removing invasive daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva), planting existing beds with bee
favorite flowers and screening an old shed with flowering native shrubs and vines. As Pat learns more about her gardening conditions, she fine tunes her plantings each year and has started growing her own plants from seed.
Pat says everyone thinks the big challenge for gardening in low lying parts of the lower Eastern Shore is occasional flooding, especially along brackish streams. Her biggest challenge, though, has been two layers of landscape fabric left by the previous homeowner. Each new plant requires digging through that.
Pat says she is most delighted by the array of beneficial insects she sees every day. She has a pretty keen eye for that. Every single plant she showed me, it seems she was also identifying a pollinator or two on each. And there were a lot of them on a party cloudy, mild May morning.
Pat says her garden is very much a work in progress. Judging from the number of insects buzzing about, I'd say it is already a success. One of her strategies is seeing which plants self sow and grow easily and happily. In that category, she is a big fan of both the straight species of lyre leaf sage (Salvia lyrata) and the cultivar featuring burgundy leaves (Salvia lyrata 'Purple Knockout'), golden alexander (Zizia aurea) and native strawberry (Fragaria virginiana). Note the size of those strawberry leaves! This is not the invasive weed with the tiny yellow flowers and berries. The native is larger and has white flowers, though the berries are small. Some of the plants that have not worked well in her sandy soils are boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum), inkberry (Ilex glabra) and wild ginger (Asarum canadense).
I met Pat through Nuts for Natives. You may recognize Pat as a frequent commenter. She usually reminds us of what is native to her area and about differences in her garden conditions in the lowest reaches of Maryland's Eastern Shore. I so appreciate this as comments give us the chance to learn from each other and the more comments, the better the chances of someone new stumbling onto native plants!
Pat's nearest nursery on the Eastern Shore for native plants is Unity Churchill Nursery between Centreville and Chestertown, so quite a drive. She looks forward to annual plant sales by Adkins Arboretum, the Coastal Bays Program and the Lower Shore Land Trust. She also has turned to seed starting, using the winter milk jug sowing method. She likes to buy seeds from Hayefield in Bucks County, PA. Hayefield offers over 275 neonicotinoid free, native seed types.
The day I visited, her New York ironweed seeds were just germinating. Pat said it was her coldest Crisfield winter yet and they received lots of snow! We talked about plants that are slow to bud up after winter including her native hibiscus, new seedlings and heath aster (Aster ericoides) she planted in a new bed along her shoreline.
Despite all the water at her door step, Pat knew she needed a freshwater pond for wildlife. Her pond shows "build it and they will come" doesn't require a huge investment or pond. This sweet pond holds pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata), a summer bloomer, and hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum). To keep ducks out, Pat built this simple screen with two small doorways used by frogs. Nothing against ducks but they are a bit large for this pond!
This journey to Crisfield has taken Pat to Master Gardening, avid birdwatching, participating in Homegrown National Park and being Bay-Wise certified. From time to time, she leaves extra plants out for neighbors hoping they might join in the fun. All taken! Future projects include new deck beds to be built by her husband Bob. I can't wait to see how Pat's garden continues to grow.
Happy Gardening.
