Native plants for damp sites
GARDENING
It’s holiday time and I’m penning my column from our summer retreat on the shores of Lake Huron.
Listen carefully, you may be able to hear the sound of waves lapping rhythmically on the sandy beach just beyond our window. The breeze off the lake is mercifully cool tonight, after last night’s thunderstorm broke the heat wave — people and plants are breathing a sigh of relief.
I spent a glorious morning combing the side roads and shoreline for native plants to photograph, I love to find wildflowers growing in their preferred habitat. At this time of the year, Joe Pye weed, cup plant, milkweed, rudbeckia, phlox and cardinal flower are among the plants flowering. I was hoping to send along images of bees and butterflies feasting on the local flora: black swallowtail, painted lady and white sulphur butterflies were making the rounds, but they were camera shy. The bees were more cooperative, but they were frequenting non-native species.
The liveliest habitat was shallow pond, sheltered from the lake by a spit of rocks. A generous trail bisects sand dunes, pond and butterfly gardens (known as ‘monarch way-stations’) planted with flowers known to attract monarch butterflies along the Captain Spence Path in Southampton.
The wetland pod, includes plants chosen for this unique eco-system: cardinal flower, boneset, spotted Joe Pye weed, turtle head and swamp milkweed. This path includes a total of seven different planting zones, from wetland to sand dunes, to rocky patches and wind-blown sites. Other monarch way-stations have been planted throughout the community.
When we first started visiting the Port Elgin/Southampton area many years ago, monarch butterflies were plentiful, they would gather along the shoreline in the early autumn, before heading south. Today, monarch’s are difficult to spot. This concerted community effort to welcome the monarch’s home is to be commended.
While the butterflies were camera shy, dozens of dragonflies and small green frogs, possibly northern leopard frogs, enlivened the wetland and pond.
For home gardeners with a pond or wetland on their property, the following native plants would be good candidates for a habitat garden. Not only do they offer a feast for pollinators, they can solve the problem of what to grow in a wet spot.
The cardinal flower enjoys moist, clay soils, beside ponds or streams and full sun or partial shade. The plant forms an upright mound of green foliage, with showy spikes of scarlet-red flowers, each bearing a prominent with dot, and blooms from late July into the early autumn. Hummingbirds and butterflies will frequent the red flowers. Cardinal flowers average 90 cm tall by 45 cm wide, and although they are not considered to be long-lived plants, they will self-seed if happily sited.
Easily grown in average, medium to wet soils in full sun. The cup plant prefers moist, rich soils, but will tolerate some drought once established. Somewhat slow to establish when grown from seed. Self-seeds in optimum growing conditions.
Cup plant is a coarse, sunflowerlike, native plant. It usually has tough, erect stems to 120 to 240 cm tall and has pairs of cup-forming leaves along square stems. Sunny yellow flowers with light yellow rays are 8 cm across, bloom on the top of tall stalks. Leaf pairs are united at the bases to envelop the stem forming a cup (hence the common name). After last night’s storm, the cups were filled with rainwater.
Some gardeners find cup plant to be too large and weedy for smaller home gardens, but others find it to be an effective backdrop for other perennials. They adapt well to naturalized areas. flowers. Joe Pye weed grows best in full sun with moist soil, but it will also accept part shade. Flowers appear mid to late summer.
If you have a pond or moisture retentive soil on your property, any (or all) of these native plants would make colourful additions to your garden palette and help create a welcome habitat for pollinators such a bees and butterflies. Theresa Forte is a local garden writer, photographer and speaker. You can reach her by calling 905-351-7540 or by e-mail at theresa_forte@sympatico.ca.