Common Boneset

Eupatorium perfoliatum and Rudbeckia subtomentosa 'Henry Eilers'

Mid-August pocket meadow

Updating a favorite program today (Native Plants for Pollinators), I figured that I needed to add Common Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) to the mix.

It's been a standout in the pocket meadow (aka pollinator patch) this summer.  The entire pocket meadow has been swarming with flower visitors of all sorts.

Eupatorium perfoliatum (Common Boneset)

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Pocket meadow in mid-August

Eupatorium perfoliatum (Common Boneset), Eutrochium purpureum (Joe-Pye), various Liatris species, Heliopolis, Parthenium integrefolium (Wild Quinine), and three different Vernonia species are welcoming pollinators of all sorts in the pocket meadow in mid-August. 

Not to mention the Brazilian sage and Rudbeckia triloba to the other side of the driveway, which are frequented by bees and hummingbirds.

Squash, tomatillo, and bean flowers attract a variety of bees, including the specialist squash bees.

Posted with Blogsy

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Pocket meadow: pollinators welcome

The pocket meadow in front of the house continues to transform, but is especially lively now, as (normally) fall-flowering plants like Joe-Pye, Vernonia spp., and Solidago are in flower or starting to flower.

Pocket meadow - pollinator-friendly!

On the other side of the driveway, Salvia guaranitica continues to welcome hummingbirds and bees of all sorts, accompanied by a tall Rudbeckia triloba.

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Moving to a new garden

We've been so fortunate to have a new "piece of earth" to move forward to -- there's so much that we've established of a new garden, over the past 6 years, from my raised beds for vegetables and pocket meadow in front, to the native woodland garden below the house (my gardening companion's work).

We loved this house when we first visited because of the view into the ravine forest (now greatly enhanced), because of invasive eradication and addition of understory natives.  These were fall views in previous years.

I was reminded of this as I was looking in my past posts and photos for a new blog header and thinking that I didn't really have the photo that I wanted.

It'll come.

I'm wistful this week as we approach moving day on Friday from our old house and garden, but am totally fortunate to have a wonderful new space to look forward to.

With an exuberant-looking pocket meadow in front!

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Pocket meadow and views

view through the front door

 I'm grateful today for the wonderful view out the doors in our small mountain house.

pocket meadow- late August 2014

We've certainly created the view out the front door, and the back -- well, the forest overstory was there, but it was my gardening companion's hard work that freed the understory from invasives, and created a semblance of a natural forest.

view from back deck

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Pollinators

pocket meadow -mid-August 2014

The pocket meadow in front is being visited by all sorts of bees and butterflies.  What fun!  The Joe-Pye, Boneset, Phlox, and Ironweed are all in play, not to mention the South American Salvia guaranitica, which our native ruby-throated hummingbirds love.

Bumblebee on boneset

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"Pocket" meadow

The plants in the pocket meadow out front are such a nice mix, flowering sequentially throughout the growing season.  This is somewhat (although not entirely) by design.

It was heartening to see how many of them survived the exceptionally cold winter -- and the ones that didn't; well, their spot just gives me an opportunity to plant something else.

The hybrid Penstemons, even though they were western species, were casualties, probably from the wet summer more than the cold, but the species Penstemon now in flower (also western species, I think), are a lovely lavender.  An single P. hirsutus, planted last week, makes a nice contrast to the others and filled in a gap. And the white flowers of P. digitalis "Husker's Red" will be open soon; the purple foliage adds to the mix.

The yellow Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea) have flourished - they're huge this year. Interestingly, I just read that the flowers and foliage were edible -- it wouldn't have occurred to me!

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Views out the front door

Female goldfinch gleaning seed

I spent the morning cleaning up the last of the beans and squash from my vegetable beds in the mountains.

I won't be back for several weeks, although my gardening companion will be as well as the folks who keep an eye on things, etc., so I wanted to tidy up the garden.

Echinacea fruits

view through the front door

The joy of the morning, aside from satisfaction in getting the beds cleaned up, was how fun the pocket meadow was!  Talk about lively.

First, a female goldfinch was gleaning seeds from Echinacea fruits that are already looking scruffy.

Then, a monarch dropped by to visit Aster flowers.

monarch on Aster 'October Skies'

And in between, a hummingbird whizzed by on her way to a Salvia flower.  What fun!

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Front meadow

I really wish I had a decent camera at the moment - the iPad 2 is pretty minimal (awful, actually). I miss my trusty Nikon D100 left at home in the Piedmont through forgetfulness and a hurried exit!

But I enjoyed the front meadow this evening, and even these sub-par photos reflect the scene. (As an addendum, I used the PhotoGene app on the iPad to "improve" these marginal photos.) It seems to be a useful app, and well worth $2.99.

Posted with Blogsy

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Understanding plant communities & creating pocket meadows

The heading titles were my gardening companion's message and mine at the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference today.

It's been such fun to connect with avid native plant people of all persuasions (novice to expert!) over the last few days.

Learning is always good, at whatever point in the process of learning about native plants that we are:  as native plant enthusiasts, garden designers, nursery owners, and home gardeners.  There's a great mix of participants in the conference, representing all of these, and more.

I'm thinking again that I don't have a image to upload - but really, my end of the talk photo is what it's about -- what do you want to see out the door?

An endnote:  currently the pdf version of my presentation along with a species list is on the sidebar.

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Natural gardening, meadows and informal perennial borders

Natural gardening to me means mimicking nature, recreating the way that natural processes result in the plant communities and successional habitats that we see, encouraging plant combinations that work, look and feel like natural places.  It's what I like to see at home.

Meadow habitats are particularly challenging, since they're so successional, and maintained by disturbance, whether it's grazing, mowing, or fire.

But they're such wildlife-friendly habitats, and normally lovely in terms of plant combinations, flowering interest, etc. that I've wanted to keep incorporating them into our gardens.

But meadows aren't easy, since they're prone to proliferation of more aggressive species (think about species like common milkweed, Indian grass, river oats, and goldenrod, here in the SE US). They love to take advantage of richer garden soils and become thugs quite quickly, as many prairie and meadow species are inclined towards leaner soils.

the current view of the pocket meadow in the mountains

another view of a native parking lot planting at the Botanical Gardens of Asheville

So my inclination towards "pocket" meadows, more or less manageable informal patches made up of natives was kindled.

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More pocket meadows

I'm been on the lookout for informal plantings of native grasses and forbs (herbaceous perennials) --- these are the pocket meadow plants and plantings that I'm wanting to promote in an upcoming talk. 

More expansive meadows (at least in the eastern U.S.) are hard to manage, as they want to become woodlands and forests (natural succession at work).

But smaller 'pocket meadows' -- more like informal native perennial borders-- are a lot more satisfying, promoting pollinator visits as well as providing habitat for seed-eating birds like goldfinches, in the fall.

Here are some wonderful examples in the parking lot for the Botanical Gardens of Asheville and the adjacent greenway plantings along Weaver Blvd. (in Asheville, N.C.)

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