Native Plant Gardens: Editing

Depending on your garden style and goals, editing can make a big difference.

There are so many styles of gardening from modern to formal to transitional to completely wild. Native plants can fit into any of those designs. If your goal is solely supporting habitats and wildlife, you may limit your editing to removing invasives which will pop up from time to time thanks to seeds deposited by wind, birds or other wildlife. If you have a modern garden, removing unwanted plants may be a more frequent endeavor.

I give this a lot of thought because in my 1/8 acre of an urban garden, I want to try lots of different native plants and plant as many keystone species as possible. Keystone species, like goldenrod and asters, provide outsized ecological value compared to other native perennial flowers. At the same time, they are blousy, vigorous growers. Having lots of plants and many which are energetic in a small space can quickly lead to a very wild look. I am very mindful that, as popular as native plants have become and beloved as the idea of pollinator gardens is, wild gardens are not the mainstream norm. I want my garden to be something many people will think is at least interesting and hopefully desirable. My favorite thing is when someone walks by and asks about a native plant and I can share some info with them.

Before

After

To that end, I often find myself editing my garden around this time of year. Everything is growing abundantly. Removing plants, to transplant to another location or share with friends, can make an enormous difference.

There are a couple of phone tools we now have that can make editing easier. Black and white photographs are surprisingly revealing. By removing the distraction of color, you can more readily see shapes, forms, and texture and where you might want to edit. In the photo above, the only leaf contrast is the oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia). Otherwise the plants all look generally the same. Adding in different leaf shapes or repeating the oakleaf hydrangeas might help.

with hanging basket

without hanging basket

The erase feature for photo editing allows you to easily remove a plant from your photo to give you a sene of what removing a plant might look like. It's easy to see what removing the hanging basket would look like.

This is a long narrow area that probably needs more editing than I did! I am sharing it in case it sparks an idea for you in your garden. It is located to the rear of a pie shaped lot and is about 30' long and 15' wide. Most of the space is directly beneath a row of three mature eastern red cedar trees (Juniperis virginiana). The soils are fairly dry. The area gets about three hours of early morning sun and is otherwise in shade.

Ashe's Magnolia

This is where I started - not the prettiest sight! The small Ashe's magnolia (Magnolia ashei) tree is about 6 feet in front of the rear fence. I decided to remove it because the large leaves of the still young tree stopped your eye well short of the fence.

Without the Ashe's Magnolia

Once it was removed, I looked at the beds on either side. The right looked scraggly. In addition to a row of non-native peonies, there are three coralberry shrubs (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus), a sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus), a couple of anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum), and a wild violet ground cover (Viola sororia). The side directly under the trees incudes goldenrod (solidago), mountain mint (Pycnanthemum), wild hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens), heuchera 'Autumn Bride' (Heuchera villosa 'Autumn Bride') and two types of carex.

Coralberry Shrubs Removed

The straight species coralberry spreads by suckering and had started to send out runners. I removed those three shrubs. There were also two anise hyssop perennials on the left and I moved those to the right to create a line of those on one side.

After Editing

Next, I moved the eastern star sedge (Carex radiata) to the left and removed the wild violets that migrated to the center. (There are still lots of wild violets in both side beds). I also moved the fleabane (Erigeron pulchellus "Lynnhaven Carpet') to another part of the garden. This neatened the area considerably. Last, I moved the topiary near the fence to provide some sort of focal point.

stepping stones

stepping stones and mulch

with arbor

Adding stepping stones or mulch would also bring a bit more order to the area. Our phones allow us to try out so many options, adding or subtracting! Do you have editing to do in your garden? Tips to suggest? Please share your ideas!

Happy Gardening.