The most important word in the title of “Armitage’s Native Plants for North American Gardens” is the last one: “gardens.”
Allan M. Armitage, University of Georgia horticulture professor and author of magisterial books on perennials, annuals and biennials, wants to bring native plants out of the prairie, the woodland and the manifesto and into the front-yard mainstream. He wants them to be considered simply as part of the standard palette available at garden centers, comfortable outside any home, not just those of native-plant enthusiasts.
In a sense, we’re way ahead of him. Many gardeners happily include mainstays such as rudbeckia (black-eyed Susan), Tradescantia virginiana (spiderwort), Dicentra eximia (fringed bleeding heart) and the omnipresent coneflower (echinacea) without even knowing they are native plants.
Breeders are in the game too. Each spring, catalogs bring startling — sometimes grotesque — new cultivars of natives: echinaceas without petals or with double puffs of bloom or gaillardias that are burgundy instead of the red-and-yellow of the Great Plains Indian paintbrush.
To some, that goes against the grain. Native species, they say, should be cherished for what they are, in settings as close as possible to those in nature, among their long-evolved companions, attracting the wildlife that has lived with them for eons. Many a prairie reclamation, meadowlike yard and specialist nursery testifies to their dedication.
But “if the native plant movement is about having native plants in every garden, they have to give the gardener a hand,” Armitage says. And that means welcoming cultivars selected or bred for smaller size and less floppy stems, double flowers, longer bloom time and other qualities gardeners look for.
Doesn’t that dilute what “native plant” means?
Well, “native” is a slippery term to begin with, like “natural” on a cereal or shampoo label. It could mean native to the Chicago area or to the Midwest, or it could mean native to somewhere, anywhere, in North America. Gardeners may be drawn to the “native” aura without realizing that a plant native to the more acidic soil of Massachusetts or even Michigan could do less well in Chicago than a plant from China.
Native plants have special virtues — they are hardy in their local climate and tolerant of its swings, suited to its soils, resistant to its endemic diseases and welcoming to its butterflies, bees and often birds.
But that’s only if they are planted where they come from. Once a plant starts to wander, gardeners must be attentive to learning its requirements — hardiness, light needs, preferred soil type and pH — and its susceptibility to diseases.
When Keith Gerard Nowakowski started his small nursery in Steger, Gerard & Greene, he set out only to grow species from south Cook County, Will County and northwest Indiana. But he carefully chose a name that wouldn’t label his business as only for native-plant true believers. In his day job as a landscape designer for Clarence Davids & Co. in Matteson, he freely uses natives in combination with plants from all over the world.
His book “Native Plants in the Home Landscape for the Upper Midwest” includes, along with its photos and detailed descriptions of Midwest native plants, plans for a woodland garden, a savanna garden, a prairie garden and a duneland garden — all as island beds that could (with proper soil preparation) nestle in a suburban lawn.
In a city garden, he says, he easily could see the native Solomon’s seal, with its arching stems of dinghy-shaped leaves, among the frothy blooms and finely cut foliage of astilbe, an import from China. Even the native woodland jack-in-the-pulpit, he says, might find a place as a specimen under a city tree.
Rinda West of Rinda West Design: Garden Sanctuaries for Chicago and, like Nowakowski, a member of the Midwest Ecological Landscaping Association, does city yards. “You can’t have a natural garden in the city,” she says, because nothing there is as nature made it. But nonetheless, she is a firm evangelist for native plants and makes every attempt to work in bee- and bird-beckoners such as Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum), coreopsis (tickseed) and bluestem grass (andropogon). She has successfully combined a dwarf blue spruce that she doesn’t consider a native because it’s from the West (Picea pungens `Glauca Globosa’) with prairie dropseed grass (Sporobolus heterolepis), which turns bright yellow in fall.
Buying native plants from trusted sources that grow them locally is essential, West says. That way they really will be accustomed to the local soil and hardened to Chicago winters.
West doesn’t hesitate to use cultivars. But she is mindful that in selecting for qualities such as color or compactness, breeders may let other native-plant virtues slip away. The new cultivar may not be as attractive to wildife, for example. Nowakowski has heard that `Kobold,’ a shorter cultivar of prairie blazing star (Liatris spicata), doesn’t bring in butterflies like the native species does.
Armitage says he’s willing to let the market police cultivars. In the long run, the worst ones won’t sell, he says.
His book is typical Armitage — full of chatty, strongly opinionated and deeply knowledgeable discussions of both straight species and cultivars. Many of the plants, he says, he often has recommended simply as “perennials” or “ground covers” before cutting them out as “native plants.” He recommends such plants as lacy, shade-loving goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus), moisture-loving pink turtlehead (Chelone obliqua) and, as an annual, basket flower (Centaurea americana). “All I want to do is talk about pretty things,” he says. “You want to have a garden because you want it to be pretty.”
And native plants are part of the paintbox.
– – –
Learn more
Here are some sources of information about using native plants in gardens:
Books
– “Armitage’s Native Plants for North American Gardens” by Allan M. Armitage (Timber Press, 451 pages, $49.95)
– “Native Plants in the Home Landscape for the Upper Midwest” by Keith Gerard Nowakowski (University of Illinois Extension, 120 pages, $24.95). Call 800-345-6087 or see www.publicationsplus.uiuc.edu or www.barnesandnoble.com.
Guides
– The Morton Arboretum in Lisle has publications on “Native Trees of the Midwest for the Home Landscape,” “Native Shrubs of the Midwest for the Home Landscape” and “Late Summer & Autumn Prairie Plants.” Call 630-719-2424 or find PDF files at www.mortonarb.org/plantinfo/plantclinic/ planttrees/plantclinic(underscore)planttrees.htm.
– Chicago Wilderness has a guide to natives, “Landscaping with Native Plants,” www.chicagowilderness.org/wildchi/landscape/index.cfm.
Designers
– Rinda West Designs, Garden Sanctuaries for Chicago, 773-575-1205 or www.rindawestdesigns.com
– Midwest Ecological Landscaping Association, www.melaweb.org, can help you find a designer.
Plants
– Gerard & Greene Native Plant Nursery, Steger, 708-758-2255 or www.gerardandgreene.com
– The Natural Garden, 38W443 Illinois Highway 64, St. Charles; 630-584-0150 or www.thenaturalgardeninc.com
— Beth Botts
———-
ebotts@tribune.com
