Thursday, January 15, 2015

Naturalising


Unless we garden in very small areas, we all have "wild" parts of the garden where we expect plants to be able to take care of themselves and compete with the local vegetation. Plants  that can be relied on to do so will be different for each of us, depending on local conditions. I have tried in this post to list some of the ones that can put up with our poor alkaline soil, which tends to be on the dry side in summer and is always wet (when not flooded) in winter.

One of the most interesting of these is the Grecian Foxglove, Digitalis lanata.

 Grecian Foxglove





This foxglove could be described as independent minded. It usually decides where and how it will grow. I have often collected seeds and planted them where I wanted the plants to grow, but to no avail. Every year, several of them turn up. but not where I have planted them. They can be moved, however. They more often grow singly, outside the boundaries of the garden proper, on grassy banks where they get a fair bit of sun. Last year, one appeared right in the middle of a clump of Narcissus poeticus. Digitalis lanata is described as a perennial for shade. However, at Roche Fleurie, it grows mostly in sunny spots and is biennial.


Digitalis lutea and D. grandiflora

Two other digitalis species that can fend for themselves are Digitalis grandiflora and Digitalis lutea. These are actually perennials and tend to grow in clumps. They are not as independant minded as Digitalis lanata.  They will usually grow where you plant them. In the picture above, lutea is the one with very small flowers, whereas grandiflora is the one with larger flowers. Having them grow side by side, you can see where grandiflora gets its name, even if, in fact, the flower is not big. Lutea is the more prolific of the two. The ones above have been surviving on their own for at least 10 years among the cinquefoil (Potentilla recta), cow vetch (Vicia cracca) and buttercups (Ranunculus repens).

Sweet Williams growing in the grass

One plant which, to my surprise, is able to naturalize in the grass is Sweet Williams, Dianthus barbatus. I do not remember ever planting it outside the garden wall, but it has come up through the grass and seems to be doing well. It is not as lush as when grown in a garden with no competition. In the grass, each clump includes fewer flowers, sometime only one or two. However they acquire a unsophisticated charm that the large pampered flower heads of the garden-grown plants do not have.


Pinks

Other dianthus plants also colonize dry sunny areas around the garden. Pinks of mixed origins, like the one above, appear in the gravel of the driveway in full sun.

Maiden Pink

In mowed areas over the septic field, many clumps of Maiden pink (Dianthus deltoides) elbow out their way through the short grass. In fact, in that sunny, sandy area, the grass seems to finds it harder to survive than the Maiden pinks which do not mind being dry after it has bloomed.

Red Valerian

As our soil is alkaline, the red valerian, Centranthus ruber, does naturalize. However it does not share my opinion about where it will be happy.  There is a sunny area below a low dry stone wall where it should prosper, but it only sprouts in parts of the garden where it is not wanted. That is the nature of volunteering plants.



Colchicum does not seed itself and so you cannot say that it has naturalized here, but if you plant the bulbs in grassy areas outside the garden, they will survive quite well, the clumps getting larger each year. I find outside the garden is the best place to grow it as you tend not to notice the large leaves in the summer, even when they are turning brown, and the plants bloom just as well as they would with no competition.  This is true for many bulbs, including Anemone blanda and of course narcissus.

Yellow Loosestrife and peach-leaved bellflower

I could mention more naturalizers. I will close with this grouping of Lysimachia punctata and Campanula persicifolia, which are both able to grow through grass. If it is wet, yellow loosestrife can actually become rather pushy as the clump shown below on the bank of a brook at the Métis Garden.

Yellow loosestrife naturalized




16 comments:

  1. We have interdependently minded foxgloves too which will self seed with abandon on the plot but never in the garden, I have to dig some up and bring them home. As for valerian - it is too thuggish for us. We haven't any naturally wild areas so maybe it would be different if we had.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yours must be the purpurea foxgloves. I know a few people who grow them well here but on the whole they are difficult for us. Except for a few places like the West coast, they do not like our climate. I never had nice ones. They always look as if they barely managed to survive (which is the case).

      Delete
  2. I do enjoy the tests of will between you and your plants.
    I remember Sweet William from childhood, but have seen none lately.
    I planted a foxglove shared from a friend's garden last fall. As raggedy as it looked when I planted it, late, it was one of the last plants with a blossom.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joanne, you should get a packet of Sweet-Williams seeds. They are very easy and they smell and look so good (they will bloom only the second year though). Their marvelous perfume will bring back memories of your childhood!

      Delete
  3. Hi Alain, I have a policy of planting "thugs" like Lysimachia in the places where other plants will not flourish in the hope they will grow and the adverse conditions will limit their enthusiasm, however one that doesn't perform is Centranthus. The Dianthus must think they are in heaven on your limestone it is ideal for them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Centranthus does well here but in gardening books you often see them growing on embankments spilling over steps. I have just such a spot for them but they won't grow there.

      Delete
  4. Hi Alain, what a delightful and inspirational post especially for me as my condiitons are quite similar. Both foxgloves I love most of all the Grecian one which I cannot get around here, sadly. I like the way plants grow in crevices in your garden - you've really made an art out of gardening on a very challenging site. Chapeau :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. If it is any help, the Grecian foxgloves grow here in spots that are humid in spring but quite dry by summer, with sunshine three quarters of the day.

      Delete
  5. I don't think your plants would like our heavy clay, except Digitalis grandiflora which I have here and it seems very happy. I had Valerian for quite a number of years but eventually it died out. I do like it when flowers from the countryside jump over the fence and make themselves at home.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is funny isn't it how plants willl do well for quite a while and then disappear. Then you see them in a book or in a post and you say - I used to have that, where has it gone? It happened to me the other day with Viola sororia f. priceana which used to be a weed but has now disappeared.

      Delete
  6. My garden is too small to allow plants to naturalise in places so I will make do with yours Alain.
    The loosestrife looks wonderful. I was once given some and then read how invasive it could be - I promptly pulled it up the following day! The red Valerian is one I'd like to grow but it doesn't do well here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The yellow loosestrife is quite attractive in that garden. The patch is much bigger than the picture suggests. It runs all the way to the top of the bank. It is the best way to use it that I have ever seen.

      Delete
  7. Hello Alain, I think the only area where we have plants naturalised is the lawn - or grass, since it's full of all sorts of grass weeds like daisies and other wild flowers that I can't name. In the summer, I like to go upstairs and look out of the back window to the lawn next door, it's immaculate and pristine like a golf course; then I look down at mine and see it carpeted with countless white, yellow and blue flowers and it makes me smile.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I much prefer a lawn with daisies and violets. It does looks a bit weedy but, although attractive, pristine golf course like lawns are biologically a desert. I am sure your lawn is much more interesting than the neighbours's.

      Delete
  8. I have yellow foxglove, not sure if it is lutea or grandiflora, in the back garden's part shade. They hang on but do not spread much. Campanula persicifolia also is short lived in my garden and does not spread. I do love the Dianthus growing wild in the grass.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Our soil is just so opposite. Getting red valerian to grow in my garden has been a challenge. I finally succeeded in keeping it alive in a pot and then in my garden. But to do so, I had to dig a hole 12" deep, fill the bottom third with rocks, the middle third with pea gravel, and the top third with old soil mixed with native acidic clay loam and more gravel. I then planted them high and mulched the crowns with gravel. I did all this last fall and so far they've survived a wet winter. I do have some pinks that seem to be fine and yellow loosestrife here is a highly invasive noxious weed.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for leaving a comment