By JIMMY ROGERS
Credit: Jimmy Rogers
Newcomers to native gardening often feel shame watching something they planted die — but those moments could be learning opportunities, instead. In nature, individual plants attempt to pioneer new areas and, if they’re successful, create new communities in the form of meadows, thickets and even forests. Most pioneers do not persist, though, either due to conditions or competition from other plants. If a plant doesn’t thrive in your garden, it’s an important lesson about your land.
When trying to determine why something died, let this maxim guide you: right plant, right place. Review the instructions from the nursery regarding sun, moisture and soil texture. (If the nursery didn’t provide any information, you can find most Maryland native plants at nativeplantcenter.net, which draws data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.) If your planting site is much wetter or drier than is indicated for the plant, that’s often the reason it didn’t thrive. Similarly, a shade-loving plant may have burned up in too much sun, or a sun-loving plant may have withered in the shade. Native plants can often adapt to conditions a little outside of their ideal, but extreme mismatches will shorten their lives.
You can also double check your initial assessment of the site itself. If it was moist on the day you planted but grew dry throughout the summer’s heat, you might reclassify it as a dry site. Similarly, if the ground holds onto water for a long time after a rainstorm, that means it’s a wet site.
If the conditions seem to match the indicated needs of the plant, but it’s still not doing well, look at the rest of the plants in the same area. Are you having a hard time growing anything there, or just this species? Does it seem like a dead zone? You could have a nutrient imbalance or pollution in the soil. Your soil may also have an unusually high or low pH, which can stress out some plants. Consider having your soil tested by a soil laboratory; the University of Maryland Extension has an excellent page with a list of testing laboratories and a helpful instructional video (tinyurl.com/yfr6fhdr). Soil tests cost between $10 and $30 and will include advice on how to amend your soil if an issue is detected.
After thoroughly reviewing the site conditions, you can begin exploring more subtle nuances that contribute to plant success. While the nursery industry has tried to define planting sites with a few descriptors, the reality is more complex. For instance, I planted a wide variety of native plants along the side of my house the year I moved in, and I was surprised by which plants flourished and which disappeared. The sun strikes one corner of the bed harshly where the downspout lets out, so it imitates the sunny, wet habitat of a lake edge or floodplain; this makes my native hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos) very happy. However, sneezeweed (Helenium flexuosum), which tends to like the same conditions, disappeared after having a successful first year. I have subsequently seen both species in the wild, but never together, so I suspect they have subtly different needs, and that particular spot in my garden served one better than the other.
This bed along my house continues to surprise me, as some plants grow and spread while others eventually disappear. Initially I worried about the missing plants, as I often went to great lengths to find a particular species. I’ve come to see that they weren’t a good fit for that site or its developing plant community. The downspout bed has stabilized into a coherent collection of plants that grow densely and bloom successively.
If a particular native plant continues to confound you, reach out to a neighbor who grows it successfully and visit their garden. You’ll be able to observe the conditions where it thrives, and if your neighbor’s willing, you can divide their plants and bring some of their successful variety to your own beds. Your neighbor may even have a lot to share, so you can experiment with multiple plants in multiple places.
Ultimately, a native garden is like a conversation between you and your land. The more time you spend talking together, the better you will understand each other.
