From Woodlands to meadows: gardening in the Great Lakes region
A woodland garden scene with bee balm and a large fern garden.
If Lorraine Johnson’s 1998 book, Grow Wild, was a pioneering effort to convince gardeners to use native plants, it was also a stark warning that adapting our gardens to a more wild and native state is critical if we hope to protect the ecosystems and wild ones that share our ever shrinking world.
And nowhere was it more important to adapt this approach than in and around the Great Lakes regions of southern Ontario and northeastern United States.
“The land itself seems to be literally disappearing. Favourite nooks and crannies of undeveloped, almost secretive caches go the way of development with growing regularity,” she wrote way back in 1998, almost 26 years ago.
Since then, “progress has not stopped the continued destruction of more and more environmentally sensitive lands.
“This is one of the central ironies of the Great Lakes region: We’re destroying precisely those features which make it function as a healthy, lively place like no other,” Johnson warned in Grow Wild: Native plant gardening in Canada and Northern United States.
If Johnson and others who were promoting the use of native plants more than 20 years ago could’ve seen then the progress of their pioneering efforts today, I think they would be satisfied that – although not perfect – we have come a long way in a relatively short period of time.
Is there still a long way to go? Absolutely.
For more information on using native plants and Lorraine Johnson’s outstanding book Grow Wild, be sure to check out my other posts:
• Lorraine Johnson plants the seed for native gardening.
• Grow Wild: Favourite native flowers and grasses for a prairie garden
Even back then there were positive signs that we gardeners were beginning to open our eyes to the importance of creating sustainable landscapes in our own front- and backyards.
“Native-plant gardening is all about taking down the fence (metaphorically, not necessarily literally) that separates the wild from the tame; it’s all about making a place for wildness in our lives, becoming a part of the wildness, in fact.”
Lorraine Johnson – Grow Wild Native Plant Gardening in Canada and Northern United States
Johnson wrote: “But surrounded by proof of nature’s tenacity, dwellers in the (Great Lakes Regions of southern Ontario and northeastern United States) have begun to value, protect and restore the unique natural features that give the area its character and identity: its broad-leaved deciduous forests of maple, beech, oak, elm, ash and birch; its productive marshes and wetlands; its forest clearings full of sunny-meadow forbs and grasses.
“Naturalization groups have popped up in the region like goldenrod in a clearing, working in regreening school grounds, revitalizing creeks and whole watersheds, lobbying for increased protection of existing wild areas, doing the backbreaking work of clearing out invasive exotic species that are threatening forests, and much more.”
“And working behind the scenes, sometimes in hidden backyards, sometimes in declarative front yards, are thousands of gardeners using native species,” she writes in Grow Wild. Whether it’s a hesitant novice planting a native species here and there or a full-scale naturalization effort – someone attempting to re-create a fully functioning ecosystem – a great deal of native-plant gardening is going on in the region.”
A bumblebee works the native blue lobelia in our garden. Blue lobelia is an excellent, easy-to-grow addition to a native woodland or prairie garden.
More gardeners recognizing the need for native plants
And, thanks to the work of Johnson and other native plant enthusiasts, today’s gardeners have embraced native plants, shrubs and trees helping to restore islands of nature where birds, butterflies, native bees and other wildlife are not only welcomed, but encouraged to live alongside us.
The good news is that more gardeners than ever before are embracing this new form of natural gardening. The bad news is that the majority of homeowners continue to worship grass, pesticides and non-native plants in the never ending desire to fit in with the neighbourhood.
Changing long-held beliefs is never easy, but Johnson gives us stepping stones to success in her book Grow Wild.
“Just a single bergamot plant offers nectar to butterflies, bees and hummingbirds as well as seeds to birds,” Johnson writes in her book pioneering native plant book Grow Wild.
“There are many different approaches to the use of native plants and no one right way,” she writes. “Just a single wild bergamot plant … will offer nectar to butterflies, bees and hummingbirds and seeds to birds and will perhaps inspire that curious soul to try other natives. Pretty soon, that tentative gardener will be making more and more space for natives, seeing how relatively effortlessly some of them grow, admiring their forgotten and neglected beauty, becoming convinced that natives deserve pride of place in the garden.”
“Whether its birds, butterflies, bees, moths, toads, frogs, opossums, bats, shrews – or all of them – the key to attracting critters to the garden is to create the conditions that meet their food, water and cover requirements.”
Johnson is quick to tell readers about these success stories. Grow Wild includes mini-chapters telling the stories of Canadian and American gardeners who are some of the early pioneers of adapting their more traditional gardens to native plant gardens. Their inspiring stories are enough to convince even the most staunch traditionalist to explore native plants.
Johnson’s feature on a small garden located in the heart of downtown Toronto is evidence that outstanding gardens can be created in the smallest and most urban of spaces.
She tells the story of an artistic couple who transforms a small front garden into a native-plant woodland garden packed with ferns, foamflower, trilliums and a host of other woodland species. Their woodland may include only a single, large maple tree, but it was all they needed to transform the property. The leaves from their single maple, together with leaves from their neighbours’ trees helped transform their soil into lovely woodsy soil over the years and the rest, as they say, is history.
Three favourite woodland plants in the small Toronto garden
• Red baneberry (Actaea rubra) White flowers with bright red berries that are a real knockout in summer. Flowers in early spring and grows to about 2 feet (60 cm) becoming quite bushy.
• Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) These interesting plants need moist, rich woodland soil. Features a spadix surrounded by a green hooded sheath and grows 1-3 feet (30-90 cm) and produce orange berries in fall.
• Wild ginger (Asarum canadense) Easy-to-grow groundcover reaching about 6 inches (15 cm). This rapidly-spreading ground cover features heart-shaped leaves that hide maroon bell-shaped flowers.
Our native cardinal flower adds a beautiful pop of red to the garden as well as attracting hummingbirds.
In a larger Toronto-based garden
In another Toronto-based garden, Johnson describes how the gardener was able to combine both “wild and tame” areas to create a natural-looking garden packed with plants in a 55-by-150 foot (17m by 46m) property.
The gardener was proud to report that he had amassed a “collection of more than 375 species of plants, most of them natives…”
Some of the favourite woodland plants included in the larger Toronto-based garden
• Blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) A fascinating plant that sends up dark bluish spiky shoots that turn into bushy, rich green foliage. Small unspactacular greenish yellow flowers appear in spring followed by impressive dark blue berries in the fall. Grows to about 21/2 feet (75 cm).
• Goldenstar -commonly known as green-and-gold (Chrysogonum virginianum) A dainty woodland groundcover that grows to about 6 inches (15 cm). Loads of yellow daisylike flowers in spring through summer against a backdrop of attractive dark green foliage.
Black snakeroot – common name bugbane (Cimicifuga racemosa) Large bushy plant that sends up its tall wand in midsummer that can reach 5 feet (1.5 m) and is covered with white flowers.
Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) Nodding white flower tipped in yellow that hang downfrom arching stems in spring. Foliage is lacy and fernlike. Grows to about 6 inches (15 cm).
Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) Spring ephemeral, low growing (6 inches or 15 cm) with brownish spotted leaves and yellow bell-shaped nodding flowers. Grow in large drifts for best effect.
Wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana)This rapid spreader groundcover is excellent for open woodlands and woodland borders as well as sunny meadow areas. White flowers with yellow centers arrive in spring and early summer, followed by flavor-packed berries.
Wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) This woodland beauty with its purplish pink flowers are not to be mistaken with the more common cultivated geranium (Pelargonium). Commonly called cranesbill, these low growing spreaders can act as an evergreen groundcover.
Woodland sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) Blooms late summer early fall and grows up to 5 feet (1.5 m) creating dense colonies. These plants tolerates dry conditions in the garden.
Great lobelia or blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) These easy-to-grow plants grow to (21/2 feet 73 cm) with wands of blue flowers that bloom in mid to late summer. Prefers moist conditions but will do well in regular soil in open shade.
A woodland slope in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Johnson explores another woodland garden in the United States where the gardener welcomes twelve to eighteen species of birds, including wild turkeys.
Local deer and raccoons might not be as welcome in the garden but even they fall into the gardener’s approach and philosophy to her landscape.
“I pretty much let things take care of themselves,” she explains.
Johnson explains that this approach to gardening extends to most things from compost (“I just leave things where they fall”) to seedlings (“I tend to let stuff grow wherever it comes up”) to paths (“I make them wherever I want to wander” to dead trees, which she leaves as snags for wildlife.
A fox visits our large water bowls to get a drink. Providing wildlife with their basic needs of food, water and shelter goes a long way to encouraging them to visit you or make a home in your garden.
Bringing it all together in a wildlife garden
Grow wild is more than a collection of tales from successful gardeners, or a listing of what plants work best in a given area. Yes, Johnson provides valuable information about what plants work best in different conditions and “winning plant combinations” in the woodland. There are even two full pages dedicated to some of the best ferns for woodland gardens.
She digs deep to provide readers with valuable information that is difficult to get elsewhere and certainly almost impossible back in 1998 when the book was originally written. For example, one of the featured gardens is a New Hope, Pennsylvania garden that explores the “Magic of moss.” Another features a bog garden in Saginaw, Michigan.
Finally, Johnson talks about the importance of creating a garden for wildlife. “If you’re willing to participate in the necessary give and take of gardening for wildlife, the rewards are rich. Your garden will become not just a place of ornamental beauty but a healthy habitat home and haven for creatures that are losing too much of it in the wild.”
“Whether its birds, butterflies, bees, moths, toads, frogs, opossums, bats, shrews – or all of them – the key to attracting critters to the garden is to create the conditions that meet their food, water and cover requirements.”
Afterall, isn’t sharing our gardens the greatest joy. Whether that’s sharing our gardens with friends and neighbours or the wildlife that live among us.
Author Profile: Vic MacBournie is a former journalist and author/owner of the award-winning website Ferns & Feathers. He writes about his woodland wildlife garden that he has created over the past 25 years and enjoys sharing his garden photography with readers.