Native Plants: Sometimes it’s easy.
Who says you need a front yard and back yard to do native plant gardening? There may be empty plots all around —just waiting for you to repopulate them with unique plants that used to live here even before Burpee started putting seeds paper packets.
Last Friday, I worked with a friend to craft a decent interview request for an environmental artist based out in California. I sent the request on Friday to this artist’s website and eagerly await a response. To date I have been trying to find people and content sources to write about.
On the drive home from my day job, It occurred to me that I can make my own content. Right near my home is a small park that is actually a bit of spillover from a much larger state park on the Hudson river. This park was the inspiration for the NativeBergen website. An abandoned flowerbed in a green lawn makes up the eye of a turnaround loop for cars in the one cul-de-sac that enters the park. I’ve been eyeballing that flowerbed for two years. I’m not sure who put it there but the only thing that usually grows there is weeds.
Light bulbs were going on in my head and I immediately changed course. I stopped at the local garden store near the George Washington bridge. (Imagine that, a large local garden store right at the cross roads of six highways and the gateway to New York City.) This store is by no means a native plant nursery. I do patronize them due to their small business status. Despite having a vast yet typical array of offerings, they often sell more than a few native plants for those willing to hunt for them. Its early Spring in the New York area so most of the items available were Japanese shrubs, pansy annuals and some hybridized rhododendrons.
True to form however, I was able to purchase seed packets of Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) , Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), and Scarlet Beebalm (Monarda didyma). I also had a sandwich bag of Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) seeds laying around since last winter. (The bluestem seed is probably not viable at this point, but it’s worth a shot. )
So how hard can it be to grow native plants around here? I guess we’ll see. —to be continued.April 26, 2013Posted in PROJECTS, THINGSTags: gardening, native plants, Spring Leave a comment
