Ginna's Native Garden Paradise
- Nuts for Natives
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Just how many native trees can you fit into a 1/3 of an acre?
Ginna Tiernan has created a paradise of a garden on the third of an acre she shares with her family in the heart of Easton, Maryland. She has planted about 50 trees yet her garden has big swaths of sun loving perennials too. I couldn't believe it when I saw it and am excited to share this special place with you!
Envision a house surrounded by a network of meandering paths and lots and lots of perennials, bordered by a variety of native trees of all sizes enclosed by an artful fence. Beyond the fence? Street side gardens comprised of native perennials and shrubs. This is Ginna's garden. It is truly spectacular.
Ginna has gardened here since 2007. You may know her as the Director of the Eastern Shore's native plant treasure, Adkins Arboretum. So, yes, I expected her personal garden to feature native plants but, still, I did not expect this! She buys her plants just like everyone else and is a big fan of dividing plants and self-sowing plants.
The Trees
So many trees. The largest is an oak (Quercus) underplanted with oak leaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea quercifolia). She also grows red buckeye (Aesculus pavla), paw paws (Asimina triloba), magnolias (Magnolia), eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), sassafrass (Sassafras albidum) and many more. This is the best example I have seen of Dr. Tallamy's tenet that smaller lots can support many more trees than we think they can. Ginna seems to have a couple of strategies going. The trees are planted at the edges of the property and create a really nice screen from the street. She is not afraid to plant trees that don't have aggressive root systems near her house. Ginna keeps some trees fairly small through pruning as she likes to prune. These practices allow her to have those fifty trees and swaths of garden beds too. What a wildlife haven and beautiful space you end up with.
A Paw Paw Grove
In a narrow side garden, Ginna planted three or four paw paw trees that are now about 5 to 6 feet tall. They are planted fairly close together. As you may know, paw paws grow about 10 to 15 feet wide and up to 30 feet tall. No worries for Ginna. She says she is not growing them for the fruit; she is growing them for their role as host plant for the zebra swallowtail butterfly. The zebra swallowtail caterpillars aren't looking for fruit. They are looking for leaves so maintaining shorter paw paws still helps them out. This approach is one of the ways in which Ginna is able to count so many trees in her garden. Trees pruned to a smaller size are a great way to add species diversity to our gardens.
Magnolias
Ginna seems to have a thing for magnolias. She shared how her first garden, created when she was a beginner gardener, featured an allee of Ashe magnolia (Magnolia ashei). This was much farther south in Atlanta and quite the undertaking for someone just getting started with gardening! Fast forward and this garden includes big leaf (Magnolia macrophylla) and sweet bay magnolias (Magnolia virginiana)
Many people would look at this photo and say this tree is way too close to the house. Ginna loves the way this sweet bay magnolia creates a special feeling within her home. Looking out the window from within, she says you feel as if you are in the garden. As an avid gardener, pruning to make sure the tree doesn't touch the house is not a problem for Ginna!
The Bones of the Garden
One thing that really stands out about this garden is complete abundance combined with a sense of order. This is a careful balance to strike. In Ginna's garden, a network of paths covered in pine straw, bordered by edges of blue-eyed grass, begin to create structure. A circular seating space in the very center anchors it all.
Layering shrubs and trees toward the edges of the lot begins to signal a boundary. An artful fence beyond the shrubs and trees punctuates that boundary. And credit where credit is due. Ginna asked Long Fence to create her design for the fence and they did. From the outside, passersby get a sense of structure too. They see perennials and shrubs backed by the fence and the layer of trees.
Swaths of Perennials
When I visited in early May, anemones (Anemone virginiana), blue star (Amsonia hubrichtii), bowman's root (Gillenia trifoliata), penstemon (Penstemon), blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium), wild indigo (Baptisia) and eastern columbine (Aquiligia candensis) were all blooming en masse. Just gorgeous. Later in the year, the flowering perennials will change but the feel will be even more profuse as the garden grows. This is what patience, encouraging self sowers and dividing plants gets you in time. It is really lovely.
Azaleas, Laurel & Blueberries
Native sweet azaleas (Rhododendron arborescens), laurels (Kalmia latifolia) and blueberries (Vaccinium) are thriving, telling us there is some acidity to these soils. I know a lot of gardeners, including myself, who try to grow these acid loving plants again and again to no avail. They limp because the soils are not acidic enough.
Seeing these plants thriving in this setting makes it clear if you have the right soil, you do and if you don't, you just don't and those plants are not going to thrive. Note to self!
An AC Garden
Ginna took full advantage of that 1" pipe a lot of us have on the side our homes -- the AC condensation discharge pipe. The pipe provides just enough moisture to sustain a mossed swale along the side of Ginna's house. How perfect!
Ginna was amazed when sensitive ferns (Onoclea sensibilis), a fern you see growing in moist ditches throughout the Shore, showed up naturally. She makes sure the drips of water keep the moss and sensitive ferns happy by channeling the water in that direction with three carefully placed ceramic pieces shaped like leaves. A run of Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica)) gracefully drapes over the mossy area, providing a bit of extra protection from the sun. Brilliant and creative.
A Few of Ginna's Tips for Getting Started
Filler Plants
As she was getting started, Ginna relied on black eyed susans (Rudbeckia), a prolific spreader, as a filler plant. So when she was starting a garden bed, rather than mulch, she filled cleared areas with black eyed susans until she had enough plants to substitute. Then she would move the black eyed susans to a new location and repeat.
Mowing Ivy
The one invasive Ginna had to deal with initially was english ivy (Hedera helix). Her favorite way to get rid of it is repeated mowing. The continued elimination of the leaves eventually weakens the root system until it dies back.
Legacy Plants
Ginna refers to plants in the garden that pre-dated her arrival as legacy plants. She thins them as time goes on and she will probably replace a few. One favorite, a Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) will remain. That maple and Siberian irises (Iris sibirica) add pops of color.
Details
Ginna is an artist in her garden. From details like the design of the fence to the glitter of a disco ball to a carefully placed basket for weeds, this garden is filled with the little touches signaling a well loved space.
Ginna, an engineer by training, has worked in the world of nature for most of her career. Before leading Adkins Arboretum, she worked for local government natural resource agencies and as an engineer on stormwater bio engineering projects like stabilizing stream banks with willow cuttings and restoring waterside buffers. When it came time to add bricks to the circular seating area, she dug the foundation herself.
I was curious, with all of that background, what she likes most about her garden. She says she has always been the gardener in the family and the garden has always been her respite. In recent years, Ginna realized sitting in the garden has also become a respite for both her husband and daughter when they return home. This delights her to no end!
Happy Gardening.
