Hello my dear Gardening Friends,

Sorry that I missed you all last week - personal things got in the way - and I was just not available to write to you all - so please forgive me and enjoy this offering.

I had promised you more about prairie gardening. I have heard from a number of you saying, "I would love to get rid of the grass, but I am afraid as to what the neighbours will say ??" Humorist Dave Berry said: "In North America, having a nice lawn is a considered a major cultural achievement, similar to owning a hardcover book or watching 'Meet the Press.' The average North American would rather live next door to a pervert-heroin addict than to someone with an unkempt lawn." Are we really this silly??

Whilst this typical landscape of lawn, evergreen boxhedge and some trashy trees may be neat, it’s also boring. Worse still, it is a lot of work and expense; in fact, the more boring the garden the greater the need for upkeep and maintenance.

Now is the time to stand tall and throw off the yoke of turfgrass tyranny, time to convert your landscape to a more natural-looking, low maintenance, environmentally friendly scene. Are you going to ignore your neighbours' feelings? No, of course not, for maybe one day you will need to pop over and borrow a cup or two of sugar. Sooo… we are going to start off subtly. Maybe they will be so intrigued by what you are up to that they will actually join you.

Native shrubs and trees are one way to go. Your local ecology garden, or equivalent, often has good stock and/or suggestions on which plants fall in to this category in your area. For those of you in my neck of the woods, The Ecology Garden on Ashburnham Rd. has a great stock. You can pick up bags of wonderful compost at the same time.

Why native species? They require far less coddling - after all they have survived in the area for millennia without any help from humans.

Let us start with ground covers, for the shade. Difficult ? Not at all. Finding a ground cover for a specific site has a great deal to do with the desired effect as with its covering potential and shade tolerance. Any plant that "covers" is a candidate - that is if it spreads in some way, either by underground stems, stolens or runners, ever expanding clumps or simply by growing wider and wider (Hostas) above the ground.

The three familiar standbys for northern areas are Vinca minor (vinca or periwinkle), Pachysandra terminalis (pachysandra or Japanese spurge), and Hedera helix (English ivy). The "big three" all have flowers. Vinca has lovely violet flowers in the Spring, and there are several other varieties available, with wine-red or white flowers. Pachysandra has fuzzy flower spikes at the end of stems. Ivy blooms when it is mature; the flowers are insignificant, but the fruits are black beads in umbrella like clusters and are quite ornamental.

None is really grown for the flowers they produce and, to be truthful, many of the best ground covers have flowers that are nothing to speak of. The only exception to this is carpet roses which can be quite beautiful. I grow wild ginger - a low foliage plant for the shade. Most are slow to become generously established . I grow Asarum canadense, which has matt green leaves, and the usually evergreen, European ginger, Pulmonarias, the lungworts (the wort, refers to a plant once thought to possess medicinal value), have spectacular fuzzy green leaves, often speckled with silver. They have long lasting flowers, in pink, blue red or white. You can also try Phlox stolonifera, known commonly as creeping phlox; it has ten inch tall pink, white or lavender flowers that completely hide the three inch foliage in the spring.

For temporary colour, impatiens cannot be surpassed. If these annuals become too tall, simply cut them back - even to leafless stems; they will come back and flower again and again. In partial shade try Astible chinensis pumila which has orchid lavendar flowers. "Sprite" has handsome pink flowers and wonderful ferny foliage.

Lamium, also known as “dead nettle”, is another one to use along with the ajugas. For wonderful perfume, lily of the valley is a favourite of mine - but watch it carefully for it is a bully and will take over the flower beds. Galium odoratum (sweet woodruff) is also good and can be used to flavour May wine (hmm hmmm good).

You asked me for a list of plants for various soils…

For the Dry, Sandy, Soils

Pasque flower (Anemone canescens), the asters, Canada milk vetch (Astragalus canadensis), Harebells (campanula rotundifolia), Lance-leaf (Coreopsis lanceolata), Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida), flowering spurge (Euphorbia corollata), Sunflower Downy (Helianthus mollis), Western Sunflower, (Helianthus occidentalis) Blazing Star ( Liatris aspera), Lupin ( Lupinus perennis), Bergamot (Monarda fisulosa), Mints (Menthes), Black-eyed Susan, Golden rods and Prairie dropseed, to mention just a few.

Medium Soils

Nodding pink onions, Butterfly weed, Asters, Indigos, shooting stars , Ox-eye sunflower, Prairie blazing star, Great Solomon's seal, golden rods, spiderwort, Wild iris, Turk's cap lily, etc.

For Moist soils

Red Milkweed, New England Asters, Turtlehead, Joe Pye Weed, Queen of the Prairie (Filipendula rubra), Bottle gentian, False Dragonhead, Yellow coneflower, Blue vervain, Ironweed, etc.

If you would like some of the botanical names, for the ones above, please just ask me!

Prairie plants do not need acres and acres of ground - a small garden can look just as effective as many hundred acres. A large number of these flowers and plants are excellent in a rock garden. More and more people are turning to these plants as they offer a more exciting landscape, at a fraction of the long term cost of a lawn.

A combination of the showier flowers makes a very effective butterfly garden, and in areas with appropriate surrounding habitat, they will also bring in the hummingbirds . A large number of the flowers and grasses provide both nutritious seeds and protective cover for songbirds.

You can establish a prairie meadow using plants or seeds, or both. A general rule of thumb is to give each plant approximately one square foot of space, but some need less and others more - experiment and see what happens.

With transplants (purchased please not taken from the wild) you can control the relationship of each plant to the others, thus creating more varied combinations and effects. Most trans-plants will bloom the year that they are installed, but a few very long lived varieties may need two or even three years to reach maturity. It is not unusual for many of these plants to live 25 years and more. Many reproduce vegetatively, producing offshoots that live on after the original portion of the plant has died.

Seeding is a little more tricky and inevitably results in a more random effect. It is by far the most cost effective method if you are planting a very large area, but it also needs more patience as it will take longer for the plants to reach maturity. Many seeds grow readily on an open seed bed, whilst others require very specific conditions for germination and growth. This is why plants and seeds are sometimes used in conjunction with each other. First the seeds are planted. Then transplants of the more difficult to grow species are installed, either directly following seeding or one or two years later, after the seeded area has become well established .

Whether you are using seeds or plants, make sure that the area to be planted is free of grass, weeds, brush or any other competing vegetation. Most native plants are long lived, but slow growing. Weeds grow rapidly, and can out-compete and, in the beginning, can stunt your wild flowers and grasses. Gaining control of the area must be your first priority.

There are a number of ways to prepare your site. For a small area, just dig out the sod. You can smother the undesirable plants using black plastic, old pieces of wood or any other material that will cut out the sunlight to plants below. Leave the soil covered for two or three months during the growing season (or better yet over the winter) to kill off the growing plants. If you have small trees there, mow them back to the ground before smothering them.

Hats, large ones, lots of sunscreen,( isn't it wonderful the sun and heat are back?) gloves - mosquito nets. Drink lots of water, be happy, keep weeding - and remember these golden days for the time in January and February when we are feeling desperate to be outside in our gardens once again.

Lovingly, Beryl.