The Rural Voice, 1997-10, Page 48Gardening
Take care what you plant in your garden
By Rhea Hamilton -Seeger
It is that time of year to assess and
consider your garden and make plans
for the coming year. It is a time for
admiring how the new varieties settled
into your garden and for dividing old
favourites and sharing with others.
I must admit that I have created
quite a mess for myself. We have a
lovely mix of very early blooms. One
patch after another erupts into colour.
To set foot too far into the border
would be hazardous to something just
peeking up through the early spring
growth, so I avoid too much ambitious
digging in the spring.
Then there are those plants that I let
grow just to see what they will become.
I have had beautiful tall mullein plants
that start out as whorls of grey green
furry leaves, and a lovely display of
delicate white asters in August from a
plant I couldn't quite identify early in
the spring. With this type of laissez-
faire approach to gardening it is little
wonder that I have problems by fall.
Plants that I let run rampant for the
summer are now well established,
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crowding out my old favourites. I did
enjoy their colour and I am paying for
my enjoyment by spending what seems
like endless hours pulling and digging
to try and save some of my less
aggressive perennials.
I have three beauties that I want to
wam you about. The fust one has a
lovely spike of purple bells that blooms
from mid to late summer. Commonly
called Ladybells, the Federation of
Ontario Field Naturalists has listed this
one as creeping bellflowers in their
brochure titled "Natural Invaders". Of
course it likes my well drained sunny
garden and rapidly spreads its under-
ground roots. It is so strong it will
come up amid the orange day lilies and
you know how tight a root mass they
have.
The second invasive plant I am
battling this fall is periwinkle. When I
received roots and cuttings from a
friend, he warned me I would regret
planting it. It has been about nine years
since I tucked those shoots into a
difficult area and while I don't regret
where I planted the first patch, I do
regret my not being more vigilant when
transplanting plants from one garden
the next. This lovely ground cover with
its dark lustrous green leaves and
captivating blue flowers is bred for
hardiness and when given a free hand
will take advantage of it. A few years
ago I moved some obedient plant that
was struggling amid the strangling
growth of this groundcover. Unfortu-
nately, tucked in with its roots were a
few periwinkle roots and voila, it has
become established in the new garden.
So simple and yet so fatal to the new
garden. Like so many invasive plants
they are strong and take over easily.
The third invader in my garden is the
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eye catching tansy. For years I admired
it in books and gardens before I finally
started some seed of my own. It grew to
a towering six feet with lovely clusters
of rich golden yellow button flowers.
The leaves are deeply cut and feathery
looking. But while I am admiring the
stature of this new addition to my
garden, it is spreading out underground
roots and taking over. I intend to keep
this lovely plant but it will be planted in
a sunken tire to restrict its rambling.
These plants are all good examples
of how our choices can be poor ones
not only for our garden but also for the
environment around it. After I do some
trimming and weeding in my garden I
throw the refuse into a heap on the edge
of the garden to compost. There are
opportunistic plants that will find a way
to survive in heaps like this and travel
out from there into fields and other
yards. I had a bad case of gout weed
and after pulling it all out and throwing
it into my compost heap I discovered it
the next spring happily growing in the
field. I am afraid we had to resort to
chemical means to halt the march.
We as gardeners have to be more '
selective in our choices of plants for
our gardens. It used to be that if we
bought it at a local nursery it must be
all right, but such is not the case. Often, .
new, hardy varieties are actually
imports from other countries that have
few if any predators here. The problem
occurs when the seeds or roots travel
and end up competing with our native
species threatening them with
extinction, or changing habitat to the
point that it begins to affect other levels
of the ecosystem. The familiar purple
loosestrife is one such aggressive
invader. I shudder to think of all the
money and energy spent in trying to
keep it under control.
If you have any questions about plant
selections check your local library or
call a local master gardener. You don't
have to pull your aggressive ground
covers or invasive herbs but do keep in
mind that they can get out of check and
become a problem for either yourself or
your neighbour. For more information
about natural invaders write to the
Federation of Ontario Naturalists, 355
Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B
2W8 or fax them at 416-444-9866.0
Rhea Hamilton -Seeger raises two children,
and is a skilled cook and gardener.