PBS Forum

I know native plants are a delicate topic with heated discussions about whether gardeners should stick to them or use anything 'exotic' at all, especially in relatively little-touched areas. As someone gardening in central Europe I must admit I consider it an utopia to garden with natives only, for 3 reasons:

1. At first glance, central European natives lack true spectacular plants, mostly because European main mountain ridges span east to west, and all but the most robust plants were crushed by each ice age as retreat to the south had to stop at the alps. This is also true for parts of the fauna: no hummingbirds  on this continent, making red flowers extremely rare.
2. Intercontinental trade in Europe actually reaches way back into prehistoric times, seeds and plants have been very mobile ever since then, so its difficult to say whats local in the narrow sense.
3. Local natives are nearly absent in German gardening tradition with very few exceptions like Monkshood (which is one of the few plants I consider too toxic to cultivate, anything that permeates the skin is a no-go), Foxglove and Pulsatilla.

So at least in my area, native plants are underrepresented - despite what I wrote above, some are garden worthy no less. First one is Fumaria officinalis which I mentioned in another thread for Corydalis fumariifolia

I still don't think there is a similarity in leaf. Anyway, F. officinalis is actually an annual spring ephemeral, so it's more an allowing to seed around than an actually active growing of a native.
One thing I adore are color changers - Boraginaceae are really good at that, as my local forget-me-not and Pulmonaria officinalis prove, both opening up in pink and quickly change to blue or purple, respectively. The former once again is seeding around (biannual or winter annual, though quite long-lived compared to the fumaria) the latter is intentionally established, as is the last plant, Lathyrus vernus, which has an even more pronounced color change to a almost electric blue shortly before flowers wither.

So how is the native plant situation in your area and what do you plant from that pool?

Natives that grow on my property are Erythronium oregonum, E. hendersonii  and E. revolutum.  The hendersonii is from a bit further south, but grows well here. 

Also a number of Trilliums - Trillium hibbersonii, which is native to a tiny area of the island where I live (Vancouver Island), and T. ovatum which was growing on the land when I bought it.  I also grow several from further south - T. albidum, T. chloropetalum, T. kurabayshi and T. rivale.

Diane

Diane, I see you stick to the geophytes, which in my case would include Allium ursinum

, Anemone nemorosa

Height:	10-20 cm (3.9-7.9 inch)
Flower Colors:	white, pink, blue
Flower Season:	mid spring
Life form:	rhizome

and Anemone ranunculoides

Height:	10-20 cm (3.9-7.9 inch)
Flower Colors:	yellow
Flower Season:	mid spring
Life form:	deciduous rhizome

, but I opened up the general gardening off topic area for this, do you have any notable non-geophytes that are local to your area?

There are people in the UK who believe in only growing native plants - whole conifer forests planted in the last century are being cut down before they're mature to be replaced with broad leaf trees more to their taste.

Telling gardeners what they must grow does not seem to have caught on, they did try, "if you grow these (dull boring) natives they'll feeds the bees and if you grow those exotics the bees will starve to death".

In this tiny patch of concrete set in a sea of concrete, I with my exotic plants have lots of bees, whilst my neighbours who just have the concrete have none.

Here by the sea there are native plants and if you could just see the ground you'd know where you are. They're almost garden worthy (lotus cornuta). The local park had an area denoted as botanic interest, which no doubt ticked a few boxes and garnered a few pats on the head - but since this area was invented as part of a huge earth moving project I doubt much is left.

There is a survey of the UK, what plants grow wild where. Presumably then they know about what escapes. One sees crocosmia by the road side - obviously an escapee, but what about all the snowdrops and daffodils growing all over.

I'd like to be a gardener with funding and the moral high ground - I would be blanketing the UK in brightly colored flowers.

I have the same issue here.

I tell all the non native haters  that we are all non-native here.  I grow a Korean tree (Tetradium daniellii) which is an amazing source of nectar for bees in August which is a time of the year when there are few flowering natives.

Bee keepers grow this tree for the nectar that helps the bees over winter.

I have lots of natives on my half acre, and am constantly pulling out their seedlings - 

Conifers:  Abies grandis, Taxus brevifolia, Thuja plicata
Broadleaf trees:  Acer macrophyllum, Arbutus menziesii, Cornus nuttallii
Shrubs:  Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Gaultheria shallon, Holodiscus discolor, Lonicera ciliosa, Mahonia aquifolium, M. nervosa, Philadelphus lewisii, Ribes sanguineum, Rubus leucodermis, R. parviflorus, R. spectabilis, R. ursinus, Symphoricarpos albus

I won't mention all the ferns, which sow themselves into my seed-pots.

Diane: Hmm, lot's of things people grow (partly without knowing them to be exotic) around here, especially Ribes sanguineum is quite popular, as is Mahonia aquifolium - that one of course only unless you try to get rid of it - happy digging.... I hope your American Philadelphus is less aggressive than the European one.
I once thought about Rubus spectabilis, but decided against it - all rubus are thugs I'd guess.

Arnold: They'd probably also tell you that Apis melifera isn't native in America either. I hope they are consequent enough not to eat local honey. Generally I feel the exotic plants are still valuable to feed the generalists, though maybe not all overly specialized pollinators. Even the red ones, judging by the amount of seed Ipomopsis rubra produces. definitely not native here but also definitely underused.

I would laugh when I would see a old print of American Indians with bees.  They weren't here until the Europeans brought them.  We had native bees but not the honey been.

The red flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) flowers just when the rufous hummingbirds arrive back from their winter home in Mexico.

(We also have Anna's hummingbirds which live here all the time and don't migrate.)

Quote from: Arnold on April 18, 2022, 11:48:26 AMI would laugh when I would see a old print of American Indians with bees.  They weren't here until the Europeans brought them.  We had native bees but not the honey been.

Yogi bear caught on quickly.

Local Ericaceae:

Chimaphila maculata, Monotropa uniflora, Cassiope mertensiana, Arbutus menziesii,
Arctostaphylos: canescens, manzanita, uva-ursi
Kalmiopsis fragrans [ex Douglass county], Elliottia pyrofolia,
Phyllodoce empetriformis
Rhododendron: ferruginianum, frutescens, occidentalis, microphyllum
Gaultheria shallon, Andromeda polifolia [not certain this is native]
Vaccinium: macrocarpum, corymbosum, cespetosa, deliciosum, membranaceum, ovalifolium.
These are all native to Polk County, except as noted; but, very few occur naturally on my property.

Abies douglassiana,  Castanea dentata [one of the few remaining stands of American Chestnut which escaped the blight.  These are native NOT PLANTED], Querqus garryana, Prunus sp., Penstemon: cardwellii , euglaucus,, procerus;
Dodecathion: hendersonii, pulchellum; Erythronium: citrinum hendersonii, oregonum, revolutum; Gentiana setigera, Iris: bracteata, setosa, tenax.
These are all native to Polk County but only the trees and Iris tenax occur naturally on my property.

Can someone tell me why the last paragraph of my previous post is enlarged even though I made several attempts to fix it.

Hi MarcR,

I removed all the Font tags from your post - I guess the WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor created them on pasting an external text. Whenever strange visual things happen, it may be a good idea to switch to source-Editor, where the BBCodes are displayed - just click the last Icon in the toolbar that looks like a sheet of paper (and says "toggle source mode" on hover). you can change there what you can't affect in the other editor style. If you paste a text into this mode, it will loose most of its formatting like fonts, sizes and styles which can be good or bad depending on what you want to achieve.

I am down the coast a few hundred miles from Diane Whitehead, on the south coast of Washington, in sand, and grow many of the same natives she does, less those that prefer drier summers (madrone, oaks, etc).

For trees:  western red cedar, incense cedar, shore pines, Douglas-fir, Sitka spruce, red alder, Douglas maple, vine maple, Pacific crabapple, cascara, coast redwood (planted in 1951 as a sprout from a burl), and a thicket of cherries from a former orchard, likewise cultivate apples and plums, and two seedling Japanese maples of unknown provenance, which the birds adore for perching and nesting. 

Pacific wax myrtle is one of my main hedge species, along with evergreen huckleberry, random red elderberry plants, salmonberry, which I keep but limit, likewise thimbleberry, lots of trailing blackberry, the birds haul the seeds in. 

Sword fern, lady fern, maidenhair fern and several other maidenhairs, dryopteris, also Blechnum chilense, a lovely large frond that looks like it should harbor dinosaurs. 
Lots of Pacific iris, some Lilium varieties/species (those that survive elk, deer and voles from year to year), Erythronium species, Trillium species, several Allium (crenulatum, cernuum, and more in seed pots). 

Thousands of Hyacinthoides xmassartina, a legacy bulb that I cannot eliminate, only subdue. I resort to pulling foliage and flowers on a cloudy cool day during flowering each year to reduce seed set. 

I recently read "Otherlands," by Thomas Halliday, an episodic look back through geological time at the life forms of different eras. Hope it's all right to quote this:
Otherlands, by Thomas Halliday
p. 67 (Kindle ed.)
 
"What is important in conserving an ecosystem is conserving the functions, the connections between organisms that form a complete, interacting whole. In reality, species do move, and the notion of a 'native' species is inevitably arbitrary, often tied into national identity. In Britain, 'native' plants and animals are those that have existed there only since before Columbus landed in the Caribbean. These plants and animals have legal protection over and above 'aliens', but there is oh easy distinction between native and non-native ranges for species, and non-native plants are not necessarily damaging to native diversity. Dwarf nettles, for instance, are not considered a 'native' British plant, but they are near universally present and have been recorded in Britain well into the Pleistocene. The milk thistle Lactuca serriola, which grows wild across Eurasia and North Africa and is the ancestor of cultivated lettuces, is considered a native plant in Germany but is explicitly an 'ancient introduction' I Poland and the Czech Republic, and has been described as 'invasive' I the Netherlands.
                "So it is that even in neutral biological terminology, that of dispersal and migration, carries with it an uncomfortable ring of political language. ... The human imposition of borders on the world inevitably changes our perception of what 'belongs' where, but to look into deep time is to see only an ever-changing list of inhabitants of one ecosystem or another. That is not to say that native species do not exist, only that the concept of native that we so easily tie to a sense of place also applies to time."

Very true, dear Jane. And while I mentioned  European prehistoric trade, I believe there are studies of the abundance of species alone that traveled throughout the continent on Roman soldier's sandals.

I don't grow natives because I think they are preferable to exotics. I grow natives when they fit into my garden plan.
I have a real interest in Ericaceae as a family; and 10 gerera happen to be native to my county; and 1 or 2 other genera are native to the Willamette valley.

The native trees were here before I was and I saw no reason to remove them. The other natives I grow just fit my sense of what looks good together.

Martin - good subject,  hopefully informative. 

You may know that the definition of native is quite different from one geographical place to another, and as such in MN, one of the 52 states here in the US is this: In Minnesota, plants are considered native if they occurred here at the time of the Public Land Survey (1847- 1907), which was conducted prior to and during the early stages of European settlement.
We all know that the American Natives have been here way before 1800s and some of the plants that were common in this area were described by the Natives. Were used by them as well. So this term is a bit ambiguous, if not confusing. There are over 1700 native plants in MN and many of them are flowering type. There are movements to garden with natives, but of course gardening here in MN is not the same as gardening in CA and not at all as gardening in EU.

For brevity of discussion, for many people native plants means "what you find in the woods and on the fields", and if the woods are named XXX woods - then you can even bring those plants home. 

I have in my garden Triliums, Arisema triphyllum, Gentian, Anemone, Antennaria neglecta,  Liatris aspera, Cypripendium reginae, Lilium michiganense, Lilium lancifolium, Lilium phyladelphicum, Claytonia, Asclepias tuberosa and incarnata, Geum triflorum, Thalictroides tall and short, Lobelia cardinalis, Calirhoe triangulata, and I can go on with about 450 more....and this would only be a part of what is native, all colors you may like ( the Gentian is black on blue ) 

And Minnesota is not a singular state, many states have similarly rich flora. You can garden such that through the entire season there is something blooming, or all of the same color at once.

And then you can go Japanese style, and have no flowers at all, only shades and textures of green.

The strangest thing though is finding these natives far, far away from this place, much easier than finding them here.  ;)

A couple of links to browse through, so many beautiful and colorful flowers, who can name them all?  

https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/page/flowers-by-color/blue

https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/eco/mcbs/natural_vegetation_of_mn.pdf

Quote from: Luminita on April 26, 2022, 08:07:06 AMMartin - good subject,  hopefully informative.

You may know that the definition of native is quite different from one geographical place to another, and as such in MN, one of the 52 states here in the US is this: In Minnesota, plants are considered native if they occurred here at the time of the Public Land

Luiminta,

When you speak of 52 States, are you including DC and Puerto Rico?

There are only 50 states.

Washing DC is defined as a Federal District and  Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth.

As for native we are all mostly non-native to where we live.  I've this conversation with many gardeners.

I grow native and non-native plants

;D ;D ;D  - yes, I was quick to say 52, and did not add ...and jurisdictions..... sorry if that may cause confusion.
DC is not a state, and neither is PuertoRico. I hope you found all the other things were accurate and stood up to scrutiny! ;)
Luminita

I do grow a lot of natives, among many many other things.  A mix of everything and it doesn't necessarily have to be beauteous - just interesting; diversity breeds diversity, in plants, insects, animals, soil flora, fungi .... it's a wonderful thing. 

Nevertheless, I don't knock the current bee frenzy.  It's a gateway to learning ecosystems and how nature works in general.  For some, "bees" are as far as they will go (better than not at all); for others, it will spark further intrigue for nature that is everywhere in our surroundings.

@Luminita : funny to see 2 local natives of Germany I actually grow myself in that first Minnesota blues line: Vinca minor and Centaurea montana both have a bit of a weedy reputation, but I find both beautiful and useful. I'm afraid in Germany Minnesota is mostly known for naive Rose Nyland's hometown of Saint Olaf - so sad that Betty White passed away only weeks before her 100th birthday.

The status of Puerto Rico always puzzles Europeans. it seems to be a very strange construct.

@Martin Bohnet : I have 2 Vinca minor clumps, one blue and one purple, distinctly different. They are a ground cover and bloom for a long time. However in CA it is listed as invasive. Using this perspective of what is native and what is invasive depending of the state you're in, sort of influences  what your garden contains. Each state has a different list of invasives and degree of invasiveness. And some people have no idea about any of this.
Then we get the case of the Siberian squill! ;)

I have purple ones, too - the one I posted is what I consider a wild form, gathered in one of the forests around - commercially used forest, not wildlife reservation, mind you. and it grew abundant.

Quote from: Luminita on April 26, 2022, 02:44:06 PM;D ;D ;D  - yes, I was quick to say 52, and did not add ...and jurisdictions..... sorry if that may cause confusion.
DC is not a state, and neither is PuertoRico. I hope you found all the other things were accurate and stood up to scrutiny! ;)
Luminita

In Scripture, when a future event is spoken of as already accomplished, it attests to the certainty of its happening.
Perhaps Luminta was being prophetic [with or without intent]

Here in Oregon, Vinca minor is not listed as invasive,;but, it is very weedy. It is fairly easy to control by vigilant cutting back.

Quote from: Martin Bohnet on April 26, 2022, 09:28:29 PM@Luminita : funny to see 2 local natives of Germany I actually grow myself in that first Minnesota blues line: Vinca minor and Centaurea montana both have a bit of a weedy reputation, but I find both beautiful and useful. I'm afraid in Germany Minnesota is mostly known for naive Rose Nyland's hometown of Saint Olaf - so sad that Betty White passed away only weeks before her 100th birthday.

The status of Puerto Rico always puzzles Europeans. it seems to be a very strange construct.

@Martin Bohnet : A lot of German communities in Minnesota, and a predominantly culture specific to Germany: food, customs, speaking, religion, names, genetics, you name it!  ;) And about Puerto Rico - it would be nice if it was the only thing to be puzzled about ! Imagine that people can go to war at 18 but not drink until 21. And it was only recently, like 1971 that 18 year olds were allowed to vote at 18! Amend 26! That is a big puzzle!

Hmm, in almost entirely man-altered San Francisco, a few natives persist. A few weeds are apparently natives! I had a volunteer Miner's Lettuce (I hope it sets seed). California Poppy (certainly from planted seed), and a tiny volunteer evergreen oak in the back yard.

I have planted a fair number of natives among the worldwide mediterranean mostly geophytes...and they do hang in there, both in the partly irrigated yard, and in the tended but not irrigated median strip, but I don't count those until they self-seed or take off after getting established. So the usual ornamental annuals.

Robert

My place was a 5-acre corn field about 40 years ago.  There were a few sugar maple trees and some poison ivy.  Everything else I have planted, even native species of wild flowers like Trillium recurvatum was brought in from 15 miles away.  Crop fields came very close to being quite sterile.

Some Claytonia virginica has naturalized under  European linden trees that I planted after we built the house.  They look quite nice now.  Other native wild flowers I transplanted into what was a corn field have not done so well.  Other species of trillium barely survive here.  Arisaema also barely survive. 

On the other hand, I hired a friend's son to pull up and cut down loads of Amur Honeysuckle.

Jim

Quote from: jshields on May 03, 2022, 12:25:31 PMMy place was a 5-acre corn field about 40 years ago. [...]  Crop fields came very close to being quite sterile.

Jim

Hmm, 40 years ago they were just starting to eliminate the worst of agricultural chemistry - I hope you don't have too much nasty stuff accumulated in that soil.

Jim,

You might find wooden buildings that are being torn down and use scrap lumber to build inexpensive raised beds. Then you can control the soil that goes into them.

As May moves on, some more local wildflowers appear:

First one is a Rhinanthus alectorolophus - a plant with a purpose, as its job is to weaken the grasses as Orobanchaceae like to do. Next is Silene flos-cucculi, A plant I always adored and never could grow until I got me a bog garden.
Last ones are Salvia pratense and Onobrychis viciifolia, both are adored by the bees

Dictamnus albus is another one I adore, I grow a white form and planted the type form last fall, but it will not flower this year - until last Sunday I'd have added that it is so rare I never found one in habitat. This has changed now!

Now in the second half of summer there's another adorable native for me, the gold thistle, which I actually prefer over it's cousin, the silver thistle most people find iconic. The gold thistle produces masses of smaller flowers, and the bumblebees adore it. like the bigger cousin, this bi-annual closes on wet weather.