natural habitat

Midwest Groundcovers - One of the wholesale nurseries I wish I could shop at!

Midwest Groundcovers Native Garden

I first heard of Midwest Groundcovers a number of years ago from a lecture given by Roy Diblik at NYBG. He mentioned them as a source for native plants and they had a list on their website of native plants that I printed out and carried around in my notebook for a few years. Fast forward to the COVID years, where connections to horticulture, plants, and "normality" was available mainly through webinars and YouTube presentations. Midwest Groundcovers turns out to have a Winter Lecture series that I've watched for the last 2 winters that turns out to be quite interesting.

This is what Midwest Groundcovers says about itself on its website:

Growing & Propagating Over 20 Million of the Finest Wholesale Plants in the Midwest

Although Groundcovers are our specialty, Midwest Groundcovers’ plant offerings include Evergreens and Broadleaves, Deciduous Shrubs, Perennials, Ornamental Grasses, Vines and Native Prairie, Wetland and Woodland species. We are leaders in the Green Industry in partnering with landscape architects, landscape designers, green roof and plant professionals to create inspiring planting combination solutions. Experts in plants for Midwestern durability and sustainability for over five decades.

Unfortunately for me, they don't do mail order and Irvington NY is obviously not in their delivery range. But if I lived near enough, I would buy everything from them.

Their Nursery includes the Midwest Natural Garden that was established in 2011. It was originally a planting by Walter Stephens, called The Natural Garden, founded in 1953. Stevens populated the original garden with a variety of native species that he rescued from being destroyed by a development project. Nearly 60 years later, Midwest Groundcovers purchased the property and has kept the integrity of the local ecotype plants and the original native stock plants and seed beds. In 2016, conservation work and site development began under the consultation of Restoration Ecologist Jens Jensen from Jensen Ecology. Sections of the 29-acre site were graded and a series of step pools installed to reduce erosion and direct stormwater into the pond. A vegetative bioswale and wetland area were added to capture sediment and “clean” the water for irrigation use. A selection of native plugs and prairie seed mix was planted on the pond’s edge for pollinators. In 2017, controlled burns were begun to assist in managing invasives and non-natives. We continue to restore on-site, existing natural areas and develop new ones. Habitats include woodland, prairie, wetland, and a stream restoration.

Midwest Natural Garden is a production nursery site and is not open to the public.

They grow many different species of Carex as well - and have planted a "Carex Classroom" so that people can see what the different Carex species look like. I imagine this is a very valuable resource, since Carex are fairly new to the Trade, there are so many of them, they actually have a wide variety of habits and foliage, some are best suited to specific niches and many of us (me) have no idea what most of them look like except from pictures.

The Carex Classroom is designed to help educate specifiers, ecologists, landscape designers and plant experts on the nuances of the many species available.

Here are some of the plants that Midwest Groundcovers horticulturalists found exciting in 2022.

From Midwest Groundcovers Webinar January 21, 2022 “21 Plants for 2022”

Spigelia marilandica ‘Little Redhead’ (Common Name: Indian Pink)

Spigelia is underutilized in the landscape due to limited availability, but it's poised to make an explosion in popularity. Why? It's a very versatile perennial-it grows naturally in either sun or shade. This perennial can be found growing in the wild in woodlands and along streambanks throughout the Eastern United States. It's wildly popular among wildflower enthusiasts and highly sought after.

'Little Redhead' is a superior selection of the species, vegetatively propagated to ensure uniformity. Dark red tubular flowers with yellow interiors are produced above top of an upright clump of dark green, wedge-shaped leaves. This genus requires good drainage to thrive, so do not plant in areas with standing water. Full sun - part shade; 24-28 in tall X 20-24 in wide. Rabbits eat it.

Tricyrtis formosana ‘Autumn Glow’ (Common Name: Formosa Toad Lily)

Impressive variegation is what sets this toad lily apart from older cultivars. Per Tony Avent, it boasts the widest yellow leaf margins of any variegated Tricyrtis he’s grown.

Orchid-like, reddish purple to blue violet speckled blossoms appear from late summer into early fall in the north, midsummer in the south. It has attractive dark buds and is slow-growing. An excellent perennial for adding late season color to the shade garden.

Dianthus X ‘Paint the Town Fancy’ Series (Common Name: Pinks)

The Paint the Town Series cultivars are prized for their bright colors and increased heat tolerance. Flowers appear in early summer, and a quick shearing after flowering will encourage them to rebloom in early fall. This is the perfect size to edge the front of the sunny border and use in combination containers.

'Paint the Town Fancy' produces 1", single, rosy fuchsia flowers with a red eye and serrated petals. Flowers completely cover the plant when it's in peak. It has glaucous blue foliage that stays clean and tolerates heat very well. Midwest Groundcovers considers this to be an improvement over ‘Firewitch’. It needs good drainage.

Aquilegia EARLYBIRD™ Purple Blue ('PAS1258487') EARLYBIRD™ Series (Common Name: Columbine)

A series of early flowering Columbine from Kieft Seed. There are several cultivars as seen above.. These are compact plants with lots of flowers and strong colors. 9-11 in tall with upward-facing flowers. Will naturalize. They also have excellent potential as cut flowers, lasting up to 2 weeks in a vase.

Allium X ‘Big Beauty’ (Common Name: Ornamental Onion)

‘Big Beauty’ has lovely wide gray-green foliage that is very showy - bolder than other alliums when it comes up in spring. Large soft pink flowers bloom July - Sep and are 2.5 in diameter. This is a really nice foliage plant as well as a beautiful flowering plant. Takes heat and drought and performs over a long period. Seed heads hold up well to snow and ice. 18 - 24 in tall

Cotinus coggygria ‘Winecraft Gold’ (Common Name: Smokebush)

Leaves emerge orange, turn golden yellow and then mature to chartreuse. It flowers with pink “smoke” plumes. It has a dense oval shape; good branching structure; much more “regular” habit than many other smokebush varieties. Not very susceptible to leaf burn. Beautiful fall color with tones of orange/yellow.

Helleborus X Frost Kiss ‘Molly’s White’ (Common Name: Lenten Rose)

This is a great performer in the landscape. It has silvery-green mottled foliage and a huge number of clear white flowers that are fairly upward-facing. It will bloom in the first year and will fill out quickly. Compact habit; 12-18 in tall.

Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora ‘Firelight Tidbit’ (Common Name: PG Hydrangea)

A dwarf form of ‘Firelight’. It’s shorter than ‘Bobo’ at 2-3 ft tall. Flowers turn a deep righ red color in fall. Gets a fantastic purpley-orange fall foliage color.

Doug Tallamy's Homegrown National Park Idea

I think Doug Tallamy has the right message for us, and I need to write again about his idea of the Homegrown National Park.  First of all, its pretty good marketing, because it catches your attention and is easy to remember.  The only thing I slightly quibble with is the use of the word "Homegrown" because I think to many that has the connotation of growing vegetables.  But what Tallamy is advocating is not a Victory Garden - although it would be a victory for the climate if it were to be adopted widely across the US.

From the Homegrown National Park website

Chances are, you have never thought of your garden - - indeed, of all of the space on your property - - as a wildlife preserve that represents the last opportunity we have for sustaining plants and animals that were once common throughout the U.S. But that is exactly the role that built landscapes are now playing and will play even more in the near future. If this is news to you, it’s not your fault. We were taught from childhood that plants are decorations and our landscapes are for beauty; they are an outlet for expressing our artistic talents and an oasis for having fun and relaxing in. And, whether we like it or not, the way we landscape our properties is taken by our neighbors as a statement of our wealth, our social status, and our willingness to follow cultural norms.

This is idea #1: even though our landscapes are there for beauty, expressing our artistic talents and an oasis for fun and relaxation, they need to be more than that at this point in hiustory. Your landscape has to play a more important role than just being a statement of wealth or social status.

But no one has taught us that we have forced the plants and animals that evolved in North America (our nation’s biodiversity) to depend more and more on human-dominated landscapes for their continued existence. We have always thought that biodiversity was happy somewhere “out there, in nature,” in our local woodlot or perhaps our state and national parks. We have heard little about the rate at which species are disappearing from our neighborhoods, towns, counties, and states. Even worse, we have never been taught how vital biodiversity is for our own well-being.

This is idea #2: Biodiversity is critically important. Learn what it means!

The population of the U.S., now over 330 million people, has more than doubled since most of us were kids, and it continues to grow by 4,800 people each day. All of those additional souls, together with cheap gas, our love affair with the car, and our quest to own ever larger homes, have fueled unprecedented development that continues to sprawl over 2 million additional acres per year (the size of Yellowstone National Park). ... We have connected all of our developments with 4 million miles of roads, and their combined paved surface is nearly five times the size of New Jersey. Somewhere along the way we decided to convert most of our living and working spaces into huge expanses of lawn. So far, we have planted over 62,500 square miles -some 40 million acres - in lawn. Each weekend we mow an area the size of New England to within one inch and then congratulate ourselves on a job well done. And it’s not as though those little woodlots and “open spaces” we have not paved or manicured are pristine. Nearly all are second-growth forests that have been overtaken by invasive Asian plants like autumn olive, multiflora rose, Oriental bittersweet, porcelainberry, buckthorn, privet, and bush honeysuckle.

This is Idea #3: Re-think the lawn.

... We have turned 54% of the lower 48 states into a matrix of cities, suburbs, roads, airports, power and pipelines, shopping centers, golf courses, infrastructure, and isolated habitat fragments, with 41% more of the U.S. into various forms of agriculture. That’s right: we humans have taken 95% of the natural world and made it unnatural. But does this matter? Are there consequences to using almost all of our land to meet human needs without considering the needs of other species? Absolutely, both for biodiversity and for us. Our fellow creatures need food and shelter to survive and reproduce, and we need robust populations of our fellow creatures because they are what run the ecosystems on which we all depend.

Why We Need Biodiversity

... Biodiversity losses are a clear sign that our own life-support systems are failing. The ecosystems that determine the earth’s ability to support us are run by the plants and animals around us. It is plants that generate oxygen and clean water, that create topsoil out of rock, and that buffer extreme weather events like droughts and floods. It is insect decomposers that drive the nutrient cycles on earth, allowing each new generation of plants and animals to exist. It is pollinators that are essential to the continued existence of 80 % of all plants and 90% of all flowering plants, and it is birds and mammals that disperse the seeds of those plants and provide them with pest control services.

This is Idea #4: Ecosystems fail without enough biodiversity.

Here is the solution proposed by Tallamy - this is Nature's Best Hope. Move your landscape toward four ecological functions:

• support a diverse and complex food web

• manage local watersheds

• move carbon from the atmosphere to the soil

• provide food and housing for as many species of native bees as possible.

Lawn does none of these things well, so reducing the area we have in turf grass is a logical first step. But plants vary a great deal in how well they achieve ecological goals, so we must choose very carefully the plants we use to replace lawn.

This is an image from Benjamin Vogt (Monarch Gardens) showing his front yard prairie garden makeover with a view of the rest of the traditional front lawns in the subdivision. He has a new book coming January 2023 called “Prairie Up”.

Plant Viburnums in your Mixed Screening Border

What I call a "mixed screening border" is a lot like a hedgerow.  Hedgerows divide up farmers fields, and often consist of the "native" trees and shrubs that would be there if the fields weren't cultivated.  Whatever you call them, this type of planting can provide vital resources for mammals, birds and insects.  I like to think of them as hedgerows - it reminds me of Winnie the Pooh.  

As well as being important habitats in their own right, hedgerows can act as wildlife corridors.  They break the wind, attract beneficial insects and reduce pests.  They provide privacy screens and reduce noise. Hedgerows can provide fruit, berries and nuts.  They replace weeds or rows of arborvitae.  Hedgerows help to hold water and reduce erosion. Hedgerows are a place where you can leave plant litter on the ground to provide valuable habitat for many invertebrates (who will in turn attract predators such as birds and bats) and cover for small mammals.  In addition to all that, hedgerows are also beautiful.

The more diverse in composition a hedgerow is the more species it is likely to support due to a diversity of flowering and fruiting times.  

There are quite a number of viburnums that can become part of your hedgerow.  They have spring flowers, berries, beautiful fall color and most of them won’t outgrow the space.   They do fine in part-shade (some even in deep shade).  And berry set is best when several are planted near each other.  You can have red, yellow, black or pink berries.  Plant the fragrant varieties at the front or nearer the house so that you can smell the delicious fragrance wafting over you in spring.

Here are some viburnums that I've found to be interesting and "sturdy".

Viburnum dilatatum (Linden Viburnum) not only has wonderful fruiting in fall, but has some of the best foliage of any viburnum - large leaves, wrinkled and glossy, look great all summer, and they turn burgundy shades in fall.  White flowers in June are followed by clusters of red or yellow berries which persist into winter.  Two different V. dilatatum selections must be planted for berry set.

V. dilatatum 'Michael Dodge' has huge quantities of yellow berries that persist into winter.  It's perfectly happy in shade.  V. dilatatum 'Erie' is a smaller, rounded shrub with leaves that turn red, orange and yellow in fall.  The unusual berries ripen red in summer, turn coral after the first frost, and persist as coral-pink berries throughout the winter.  PHS Gold Medal Winner.

V. Dilatatum 'Erie' fall foliage

Viburnum plicatum var. tomentosum (Doublefile viburnum).  The horizontal branches of Doublefile viburnum put on a spectacular May show, with flat white flowers marching down both sides of the stems (not in single file, but in double file).  These strongly horizontal lines give Doublefile Viburnum a distinctive silhouette.  The red fruit, which develops some years in midsummer, provides another show before being eaten by birds.  

Viburnum plicatum v. tom. 'Copper Ridges' is a new introduction with beautiful foliage. Its leaves are full of character with conspicuous serrations and deeply impressed veins, and they often show a reddish blush in summer.  The fall color is stunning: Initially copper with overtones of gold and red, it later changes to maroon.  This chance seedling from the Seacrest Arboretum in Ohio appears to be a vigorous grower, reaching perhaps 6-8 feet. 

Doublefile berries

Viburnum rafinesquianum (Rafinesque Viburnum) is native to the woodlands of the East, Midwest, and into Canada - a medium-sized shrub with white flowers and glossy black berries.  Supremely adaptable, it tolerates both heat and drought.  While it is especially beautiful in a woodland setting, it does well in either sun or shade.  Its glossy lance-shaped leaves turn a rich burgundy in fall.

Rafinesque Viburnum flowers

Viburnum setigerum (Tea Viburnum).  Clusters of scarlet berries are borne so heavily that the long branches often arch down with their weight. Reaches 8-12 feet in height and is ideal for the interior of a shrub border surrounded by smaller plants. The berries start out orangey-yellow and ripen to red.

Tea Viburnum

And while you're at it, throw in a couple of Eastern Witchhazels!

 Like

Hamamelis virginiana

'Mohonk Red' - Eastern Witchhazel.  Yes, folks, a red-flowered Eastern Witchhhazel!  Not the dark red seen on some hybrids, but a fine light red which shades to yellow at the tips of the petals.  Flowers have a nice fragrance and open in mid-autumn along with the species.  In his new book on Witchhazels, Chris Lane writes that there have been off-and-on sightings of red-flowered Eastern Witchhazels for over a century.  This selection, discovered at the Mohonk Nature Preserve in New Paltz, NY, is probably the reddest one found so far.  The shrub will grow to be about 15’ tall and 10’ wide.

Here's what three things I'm obsessed with this fall

ONE:  Rain gardens, vegetated swales, dry stream bed gardens - by whatever name (one potential client referred to it as a "glorified ditch") these stormwater management facilities are challenging and fun to design and implement.  Especially in small spaces.  My goal is to include stormwater management facilities in every design.

TWO:  Water gardens - not as difficult as I thought they would be.  It's been awe-inspiring to watch a 'Black Magic' colocasia grow from three small leaves into giant, beautiful gorgeousness, with runners spreading all over the place!

THREE:  The challenge of improving the streetscape on Main Street - what are low-cost, creative ways to invest in making our Main Street business district more "beautiful" when there is no money available?  And how do you convince "the people" that it's important enough to pay attention to?  I installed two "mini-gardens' this fall in empty tree wells along Main Street to demonstrate that treating the tree well essentially like a container (perennials, a shrub or ornamental grass, some annuals and bulbs) can look (almost) as nice as a street tree (and certainly nicer than a mostly-dead tree or gravel!).

 

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