Open your eyes to plant communities (Managing vs. Maintaining)

Homeowners with busy lives ask me all the time for 'Low Maintenance' gardens.  I am now learning through my own gardening experience in a woodland that I have naturally and unknowingly shifted my thinking to 'Managing' my garden not merely maintaining. The  plant communities have become dynamic in their ability to maintain themselves. I have put together a lovely natural looking woodland garden where plants mingle and propagate on their own with little assistance from me. I have allowed the plants I have added, in essence,  'to find their own way'.  Now, my job is as editor, in a design sense, to keep the garden as I would wish it to look with texture, flow and punctuation in the right places. 

Ferns have found a home near the foundation in the front garden. 

Plants are happily free to spread by runners or seeds by themselves. The roots and seeds find a place to thrive in the conditions where they feel best suited to grow on their own. I have an ornamental 'Matrix' of Vinca minor (Periwinkle) whose root system in my moist sandy soil stays in the top 2-4" of the soil. I could also use Ajuga and Carex species for this lower layer that is essential for keeping soil erosion at bay by covering the ground plane. Other taller plants in the next layer hovering above the ground covers are native as well as ornamental taking advantage of the deeper soil layers for their roots to grow. Plants like native Mayapple and imported Lenten Rose push through the Periwinkle matrix to make an interesting and self sustaining garden.  Managing the design only takes a bit of editing out of seedlings and runners from time to time.

 

Gardening this way is so much more relaxed. I allow the leaves to stay where they fall (except on paths that I have chosen to mulch with wood chips.) The leaves are the woodlands natural mulch and food for the canopy tree roots and also happen to feed the perennials under them as well. 

In winter the native fern Woodwardia virginica goes dormant but is circled by evergreen Fatshedera and Holly Fern. 

Saxifraga stolonoifera, originally planted in the bed on top of the wall now has migrated on it's own preferring the stone face  of the wall. In it's natural habitat Saxifrages grow on rock faces that are consistently wet. 

A couple of years ago this concept of a viable 'Plant Community' growing in my gardens was reinforced to me after watching a program on plant collecting in the Balkans by Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, NC. 

His description of plants growing naturally at a woodland edge in Slovenia was very close to the same group of plants that I had unknowingly experimented with and implemented in one portion of my gardens. It was as if a thunderbolt of understanding had struck me sitting in the audience that evening. The plants that thrive together in my case with little intervention from me are: Bracken Fern, Helleborus orientalis, Epimediums, Carex species, Camassia, Rohdea, Solomon Seal and Arum italicum with a matrix base of Violas and Vinca minor. This is a mix of plants from various parts of the world that have found common growing conditions and are happily living together in a plant community that is self sustaining. 

A seedling Helleborus x hybridus

A seedling Arum italicum found a home near a planted Camassia scilloides. 

Carex and Helleborus nestling together

In the upper layer of this garden Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' grows and kept in it's winter state of dried umbels on 3' stems is quite attractive for many months. It is left in this state until a cut back in late February. 

The term 'community' means "a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common". This meaning does apply to plants as well.  

In fact, the now considered wild places left in the world are populated with plants that live and survive together in growing conditions that make them thrive where they are. After all, plants aren't able to walk around and move to another place on their own. 

PS.

This blog was inspired by a book that Helen Yoest of 'Gardening With Confidence' recently introduced to me.

'Planting in a Post-Wild World ' by:

Thomas Rainer and Claudia West. 

Check out the book and Helen's Blog if you have a moment. 

WHEN THERE ARE NO WOODLANDS TO PUT A GARDEN UNDER

The idea of a shade house to grow plants that require filtered light is not a new one and structures for this specialized purpose have come in all sizes and sorts. From arbors, open screened roofs on poles to the more practical lath house the choices and designs are endless. Above is the marvelous pergola/arbor at Fearrington Village in Pittsboro, NC,

AND See a previous post about this subject: "STRETCHING THE DEFINITION OF CANOPY"

 If you are ever in Raleigh, NC,  you will have the privilege of walking through a most unusual open shade house.  About 40 years ago the grounds that would become the JC Raulston Arboretum at NC State University in Raleigh, NC was wide open. It was a place for professors of horticulture to field trial all manner of plants that could not thrive in full sun. There were few mature trees and no design yet in place that would make up the eventual 10 acres of the JCRA. It is now a world renowned teaching facility, research garden and pleasure grounds that thousands of visitors enjoy throughout the year. 

JC Raulston's vision of a place to test the hardiness and viability of plants from the world over began on a "shoestring budget".  This meant that many of the plants he acquired were small and initially required a specific outdoor growing situation for optimum observation and evaluation.  Partial shade from the hot, bright, humid summer days of central NC was essential to the survival of the new plants. 

                       East Entrance

A 20 year old specimen greets visitors at the East Entrance

If you are exiting the Lath House at the East side you can peer through 70+ year old Dwarf Loblolly Pines into the Elipse Lawn. 

And so was born, The Lath House. The early structure was quite simple with sturdy round poles holding up snow (or dune) fencing to create the correct amount of sun and shade. The slats of the fencing were oriented north to south providing  moving shade as the sun passed overhead from east to west. 

Over the years the Lath House became an iconic feature of the arboretum experience with winding paths and cinderblock raised beds. Now, replacing the original structure, is a state of the art and award winning sleek wood and steel LATH HOUSE designed by Architect Frank Harmon and dedicated in 2012.  

From 2008 to 2010 the Master Planning Committee worked on designing the contiguous walk through the Asian Valley, The Japanese Garden and into the Lath House. Not shown are myself, Judy Harmon and Bobby Mottern. 

Exiting the Lath House on the West side into the Japanese Garden. 

A stimulating yet practical  arrangement of raised bed gardens designed by the JCRA Master Plan Committee grace the floor plan. Still entering from east or west, the flow for visitors is two fold. Large tour groups can pass through the middle quickly while singular guests wanting to study plants in more detail can stay to the sides winding in an out of several path choices. There is seating on the bed walls throughout the raised gardens. 

Growing in a mix of compost and Stalite, traditional  research continues on plants from all over the world in this beautiful space that simulates a garden in the dappled shade of a woodland.  Beds were filled with a mixture of compost and Stalite better known as Permatil in retail establishments.  And so the plants grow!!!! 

Visit the JC Raulston Arboretum, in Raleigh, NC to travel the world by seeing plants that started their evaluation in the Lath House.