Native Plant Garden Tour, Serendipity & Celebrating Native Gardens
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Towson is all in for native plants!
Roland Oehme, a professional landscape architect, came to native plants like many of us. -- by reading a Doug Tallamy book. Unlike most of us, he brings to this story, a unique background that has yielded a spectacular native garden in Towson, Maryland, his hometown. Serendipity plays a big part in the story of this garden.
As a kid, Roland grew up visiting clients and landscape projects with his Dad. That included planting gardens, providing maintenance and lots of weeding. Both were fascinated by nature and insects and hackberry trees (Celtis occidentalis) in particular, His Dad's fondness for hackberries stemmed from the birds and moths it feeds. Today, Roland's third of an acre garden features a meadowy lawn of native sedges and grasses at the foot of a hackberry tree. Stints living in California and Germany also show up in this gem of a garden.
Roland's garden of today, tucked in among tidy lawns on a cul de sac, is very different from the garden he first encountered and then created in the same location. When his family first arrived at this home some 12 years ago, Roland knew he wanted to focus on an ornamental garden with masses of grasses and perennials, vegetables and fruit trees, inspired by the small gardens he knew in California and Germany where healthy organic foods were a priority. As a landscape architect he focused on creating an evergreen screen from neighbors, using arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis), and clearing sunny spaces. He planted Japanese persimmons (Diospyros), peach (Prunus persica), cherry (Prunus avium), and fig (Ficus carica) trees as well as loads of vegetables. Those now mature trees remain in the garden today. The day I visited, the cherry tree was loaded with bright red fruits.
Driving up to the cul de sac, it was easy to spot Roland's home. The front yard is host to the persimmons, the peach tree, serviceberry trees, or juneberry trees (Amelanchier grandiflora "Autumn Brilliance') , as Roland says, and a river birch along with lots of shrubs, grasses and perennials. The slope to the driveway is awash with blue and yellow drifts of flowers.
We started there and Roland shared one his best learnings from gardening with native plants. Let the plants tell you where they like it. Initially he planted the slope with monarch's delight (Asclepias tuberosa). By the time I saw it, aromatic asters (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) had migrated over, en masse, fitting right in with the sundrops (Oenothera fruticosa) and spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) drifts. The asters crowded out the monarch's delight. Instead of pulling out the aromatic aster, Roland let it do its thing and moved the monarch's delight to the other side of the garden. This early lesson informed a lot of Roland's work with the garden. Following nature.
But how did he get to native plants? Roland's Dad, Wolfgang Oehme, was one of the two founding partners of the legendary Oehm, Van Sweden landscape design firm which famously modernized landscape design by featuring drifts of perennials and using grasses. It is a very naturalistic design style and quite the antithesis to the designs of the day - formal hedges and foundation plantings. Roland explained his Dad was definitely motivated by a love of nature but neither his Dad nor he, as a landscape architect, realized the very direct connection between native plants and nature. When Roland was younger, he and his Dad did look at certain plants differently, like the hackberry, realizing there was something more to that tree. As soon as Roland read his first book by Doug Tallamy, he was immediately transformed and began adding as many natives as possible to his perennial, fruit and vegetable garden. Today, standing in the garden behind the house, you literally could be in the middle of the countryside. Roland estimates he has close to two hundred different native plant species in his garden today. Roland has managed to incorporate a very respectable fruit orchard with such a diverse array of native plants into this suburban lot. This garden is proof positive of Dr. Doug Tallamy's oft repeated sentiment that you can fit a lot more trees in your garden than you think you can!
The Meadow
The meadowy lawn is a combination of sedges and eco-grass, a native lawn grass mix sold by Prairie Moon Nursery in Minnesota. Roland said one could mow this like a lawn, though he prefers to keep some length to it. On a warm breezy day, it does indeed move like a meadow.
A mature elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) anchors one end of the meadow and an array of native shrubs and perennials line the back fence line. Golden alexander (Zizia aurea) seed heads were sparkling in the sun. Spires of yellow lupine (Thermopsis villosa) reached upwards. Purple flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus), a native, thornless, edible raspberry borders the small patio. So much abundance here!
The Pond
A large pond brims with aquatic plants including native rush (Juncus tenuis) and pickerel weed (Pontedaria cordata). Roland has turned off the recirculation function in hopes of attracting more frogs and dragonflies. The pond is surrounded by a stand of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), fragrant and the host plant for the monarch caterpillar.
The pond sits beneath a grand old sweet bay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana) filled with lemony scented flowers high above. It turns out, unbeknownst to Roland and his family when they purchased the home, it was Roland's father who designed the original garden and specified the planting of a sweet bay magnolia. Now that is serendipity!
The West Side Garden
Reminding Roland of California landscapes, this sumac tree (Rhus copallinum) arches over the driveway. It was so graceful in shape, I thought surely Roland had pruned it along the way but he says no, this is its natural shape. Really artful.
It is underplanted with native roses (Rosa carolina) which to my mind are perfectly placed. Between the house, the driveway and a low wall, the roses are lush but can't keep on spreading as they are apt to do. The side garden is filled with shrubs. We sampled the scents of the northern and southern bayberries (Morella pensylvanica and Myrica cerifica). I had not realized they are so distinctly different. Both are tall - eight feet or so and thriving. Both are growing in fairly rich moist soils - the key to success.
The Front Garden
The front garden is ringed with trees, ornamental fruit and native fruit trees. The serviceberry prompted Roland to ponder why we would name a tree after the time of year when graves could be dug?! You may have read that serviceberry trees bloom at a time when, historically, the ground thawed enough to conduct burial services. This is why Roland prefers "juneberry." Very wise!
This Virginia creeper vine (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) forms a soft edge along the driveway. The drifts of evening primrose and spiderwort would no doubt make Roland Oehme senior quite proud. Roland, though, is carrying this family legacy much farther. Sharing his garden in the Towson Native Garden Contest last year is just one of the ways he is spreading the word about gardening with native plants. It will come as no surprise that Roland's garden was an overall winner.
The Towson Native Garden Contest, open to beginners and professionals alike, is one of Maryland's most joyous celebrations of native plant gardens. Sponsored by the Green Towson Alliance, the contest is open now! It's open to any gardener who lives in a Towson neighborhood and includes native plants. Such a great way to share your enthusiasm for native plants and connect with fellow gardeners. Roland is a fan of the Green Towson Alliance sponsored plant swap too.
Roland is pondering a book idea or two and says he is learning more about native plants every day. Talk about carrying on the family legacy. A boy and his Dad fascinated by a hackberry tree was just the start!
Happy Gardening.
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