Saturday, May 10, 2008
In the garden, most of us are guilty of biobigotry
Libba Wolfe
Libba Wolfe's column appears twice monthly in Extra.
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Consider the words I'll use today to describe invasive plants -- "sweet," "charming" and "little babies." Consider the words I used two weeks ago to describe invasive plants -- "evil," "wicked" and "thugs."
Now consider a word I just discovered -- "biobigotry." As defined by Natalie Angier in an April 29 story in The New York Times, biobigotry is "the persistent and often irrational desire to be surrounded only by those species of which one approves, and to exclude any animals, plants and other life forms that one finds offensive."
Angier was writing mainly about birds and went on to explain that biobigotry doesn't include the common sense avoidance of pests and plants, such as mosquitoes and poison ivy, which can harm us. It's the dislike of life forms whose natural behavior we find rude and irritating.
When a plant's natural habit is to reseed or send out millions of underground roots or to sucker, it can be a welcome development or a nightmare. All depends on what you call rude.
Amicable reseeders
The responses from a group of experienced gardeners I e-mailed for ideas on the best and worst of the invasive plants revealed their biobigotry. Some gardeners can't get enough of the same plant others hate. My brother Clay divided his "good" list into amicable reseeders and polite perennial spreaders. Today I'll tell you what amicable reseeders the experts like.
Everybody likes hellebores. As Dr. Holly Scoggins at Virginia Tech says, "What's not to like?" They're evergreen, shade-loving, winter-blooming and deer hate them. She says they can be difficult to propagate in the greenhouse but if their blooms are allowed to go to seed, you'll find a circle of babies the next year. The delicate seedlings need to be dug and moved with big clumps of dirt and they may take a few years to bloom. With Helleborus x hybridus, the Lenten Rose, the colors of the new plants' flowers may be a surprise, "kind of like a litter of mixed-breed puppies: ranging from cream to pink to deep plum. The flowers, that is, not the puppies."
Another reseeder that Scoggins likes but warns is not for a garden control freak is Alpine columbine. She says they are notoriously "easy" with their pollen and you'll see some weird colors but cracking open their seed pods and shaking the seeds around a shady spot will result in lots of new plants. They won't bloom the first year and you have to be careful about not pulling them out because they resemble oxalis or clover.
Soapwort, Saponaria officinalis, is trailing its tiny pink blossoms over my stone wall. Early this spring I found many little seedlings in that bed. They were easy to move and they've taken off. Lots of bang for your buck with soapwort.
It shouldn't be tough to find a start of larkspur. Anybody who grows it will probably be very happy to share and will, in fact, demand you take all you can get in the car. This prolific reseeder has deep blue flowers that last through the summer.
Another friend likes the sweet blue blooms of blue eyed grass, Sisyrinchium angustfolium. She likes the way the seedlings form large clumps but when enough is enough they're easy to pull out.
If you allow old-fashioned johnny-jump-ups (not hybrid violas) to go to seed each year, in no time you'll have those cheerful little blooms everywhere. Echinacea and Rudbeckia hirta are just as apt to show up all over the yard. Black-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia fulgida, gave me my first giddy taste of garden success. Three little pots around the mailbox at my old house spread to a solid 20-foot border of August gold in three years.
Other charming reseeders the experts love include corn poppy, opium poppy, Jewels-of-Opar, Love-in-a-Mist, Snow on the Mountain and Marvel of Peru.
The key to encouraging the reseeders is letting those blooms go to seed. Don't be a fanatic dead header as soon as flowers start to fade. Let the seeds drop or give them a helping hand by shaking the seed heads or open pods around your garden. Don't be in a hurry to clean all the leaf litter around your plants next fall. Maybe scatter a little 10-10-10 fertilizer late next winter and wait to see the bonus babies and happy surprises in the garden. Expand your borders. Start new beds. Or share with friends if you're sure they share your biobigoted prejudices.
Libba Wolfe's column runs twice a month in Extra.
