local natives you grow

[Martin Bohnet]

I know native plants are a delicate topic with heated discussions about whether gardeners should stick to them or use anything 'exotic' at all, especially in relatively little-touched areas. As someone gardening in central Europe I must admit I consider it an utopia to garden with natives only, for 3 reasons:

1. At first glance, central European natives lack true spectacular plants, mostly because European main mountain ridges span east to west, and all but the most robust plants were crushed by each ice age as retreat to the south had to stop at the alps. This is also true for parts of the fauna: no hummingbirds  on this continent, making red flowers extremely rare.
2. Intercontinental trade in Europe actually reaches way back into prehistoric times, seeds and plants have been very mobile ever since then, so its difficult to say whats local in the narrow sense.
3. Local natives are nearly absent in German gardening tradition with very few exceptions like Monkshood (which is one of the few plants I consider too toxic to cultivate, anything that permeates the skin is a no-go), Foxglove and Pulsatilla.

So at least in my area, native plants are underrepresented - despite what I wrote above, some are garden worthy no less. First one is Fumaria officinalis which I mentioned in another thread for Corydalis fumariifolia

I still don't think there is a similarity in leaf. Anyway, F. officinalis is actually an annual spring ephemeral, so it's more an allowing to seed around than an actually active growing of a native.
One thing I adore are color changers - Boraginaceae are really good at that, as my local forget-me-not and Pulmonaria officinalis prove, both opening up in pink and quickly change to blue or purple, respectively. The former once again is seeding around (biannual or winter annual, though quite long-lived compared to the fumaria) the latter is intentionally established, as is the last plant, Lathyrus vernus, which has an even more pronounced color change to a almost electric blue shortly before flowers wither.

So how is the native plant situation in your area and what do you plant from that pool?

[Diane Whitehead]

Natives that grow on my property are Erythronium oregonum, E. hendersonii  and E. revolutum.  The hendersonii is from a bit further south, but grows well here. 

Also a number of Trilliums - Trillium hibbersonii, which is native to a tiny area of the island where I live (Vancouver Island), and T. ovatum which was growing on the land when I bought it.  I also grow several from further south - T. albidum, T. chloropetalum, T. kurabayshi and T. rivale.

Diane

[Martin Bohnet]

Diane, I see you stick to the geophytes, which in my case would include Allium ursinum

, Anemone nemorosa

Height:	10-20 cm (3.9-7.9 inch)
Flower Colors:	white, pink, blue
Flower Season:	mid spring
Life form:	rhizome

and Anemone ranunculoides

Height:	10-20 cm (3.9-7.9 inch)
Flower Colors:	yellow
Flower Season:	mid spring
Life form:	deciduous rhizome

, but I opened up the general gardening off topic area for this, do you have any notable non-geophytes that are local to your area?

[David Pilling]

There are people in the UK who believe in only growing native plants - whole conifer forests planted in the last century are being cut down before they're mature to be replaced with broad leaf trees more to their taste.

Telling gardeners what they must grow does not seem to have caught on, they did try, "if you grow these (dull boring) natives they'll feeds the bees and if you grow those exotics the bees will starve to death".

In this tiny patch of concrete set in a sea of concrete, I with my exotic plants have lots of bees, whilst my neighbours who just have the concrete have none.

Here by the sea there are native plants and if you could just see the ground you'd know where you are. They're almost garden worthy (lotus cornuta). The local park had an area denoted as botanic interest, which no doubt ticked a few boxes and garnered a few pats on the head - but since this area was invented as part of a huge earth moving project I doubt much is left.

There is a survey of the UK, what plants grow wild where. Presumably then they know about what escapes. One sees crocosmia by the road side - obviously an escapee, but what about all the snowdrops and daffodils growing all over.

I'd like to be a gardener with funding and the moral high ground - I would be blanketing the UK in brightly colored flowers.

[Arnold]

I have the same issue here.

I tell all the non native haters  that we are all non-native here.  I grow a Korean tree (Tetradium daniellii) which is an amazing source of nectar for bees in August which is a time of the year when there are few flowering natives.

Bee keepers grow this tree for the nectar that helps the bees over winter.

[Diane Whitehead]

I have lots of natives on my half acre, and am constantly pulling out their seedlings - 

Conifers:  Abies grandis, Taxus brevifolia, Thuja plicata
Broadleaf trees:  Acer macrophyllum, Arbutus menziesii, Cornus nuttallii
Shrubs:  Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Gaultheria shallon, Holodiscus discolor, Lonicera ciliosa, Mahonia aquifolium, M. nervosa, Philadelphus lewisii, Ribes sanguineum, Rubus leucodermis, R. parviflorus, R. spectabilis, R. ursinus, Symphoricarpos albus

I won't mention all the ferns, which sow themselves into my seed-pots.

[Martin Bohnet]

Diane: Hmm, lot's of things people grow (partly without knowing them to be exotic) around here, especially Ribes sanguineum is quite popular, as is Mahonia aquifolium - that one of course only unless you try to get rid of it - happy digging.... I hope your American Philadelphus is less aggressive than the European one.
I once thought about Rubus spectabilis, but decided against it - all rubus are thugs I'd guess.

Arnold: They'd probably also tell you that Apis melifera isn't native in America either. I hope they are consequent enough not to eat local honey. Generally I feel the exotic plants are still valuable to feed the generalists, though maybe not all overly specialized pollinators. Even the red ones, judging by the amount of seed Ipomopsis rubra produces. definitely not native here but also definitely underused.

[Arnold]

I would laugh when I would see a old print of American Indians with bees.  They weren't here until the Europeans brought them.  We had native bees but not the honey been.

[Diane Whitehead]

The red flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) flowers just when the rufous hummingbirds arrive back from their winter home in Mexico.

(We also have Anna's hummingbirds which live here all the time and don't migrate.)

[David Pilling]

I would laugh when I would see a old print of American Indians with bees.  They weren't here until the Europeans brought them.  We had native bees but not the honey been.

Yogi bear caught on quickly.

[MarcR]

Local Ericaceae:

Chimaphila maculata, Monotropa uniflora, Cassiope mertensiana, Arbutus menziesii,
Arctostaphylos: canescens, manzanita, uva-ursi
Kalmiopsis fragrans [ex Douglass county], Elliottia pyrofolia,
Phyllodoce empetriformis
Rhododendron: ferruginianum, frutescens, occidentalis, microphyllum
Gaultheria shallon, Andromeda polifolia [not certain this is native]
Vaccinium: macrocarpum, corymbosum, cespetosa, deliciosum, membranaceum, ovalifolium.
These are all native to Polk County, except as noted; but, very few occur naturally on my property.

Abies douglassiana,  Castanea dentata [one of the few remaining stands of American Chestnut which escaped the blight.  These are native NOT PLANTED], Querqus garryana, Prunus sp., Penstemon: cardwellii , euglaucus,, procerus;
Dodecathion: hendersonii, pulchellum; Erythronium: citrinum hendersonii, oregonum, revolutum; Gentiana setigera, Iris: bracteata, setosa, tenax.
These are all native to Polk County but only the trees and Iris tenax occur naturally on my property.

[MarcR]

Can someone tell me why the last paragraph of my previous post is enlarged even though I made several attempts to fix it.

[Martin Bohnet]

Hi MarcR,

I removed all the Font tags from your post - I guess the WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor created them on pasting an external text. Whenever strange visual things happen, it may be a good idea to switch to source-Editor, where the BBCodes are displayed - just click the last Icon in the toolbar that looks like a sheet of paper (and says "toggle source mode" on hover). you can change there what you can't affect in the other editor style. If you paste a text into this mode, it will loose most of its formatting like fonts, sizes and styles which can be good or bad depending on what you want to achieve.

[ksayce]

I am down the coast a few hundred miles from Diane Whitehead, on the south coast of Washington, in sand, and grow many of the same natives she does, less those that prefer drier summers (madrone, oaks, etc).

For trees:  western red cedar, incense cedar, shore pines, Douglas-fir, Sitka spruce, red alder, Douglas maple, vine maple, Pacific crabapple, cascara, coast redwood (planted in 1951 as a sprout from a burl), and a thicket of cherries from a former orchard, likewise cultivate apples and plums, and two seedling Japanese maples of unknown provenance, which the birds adore for perching and nesting. 

Pacific wax myrtle is one of my main hedge species, along with evergreen huckleberry, random red elderberry plants, salmonberry, which I keep but limit, likewise thimbleberry, lots of trailing blackberry, the birds haul the seeds in. 

Sword fern, lady fern, maidenhair fern and several other maidenhairs, dryopteris, also Blechnum chilense, a lovely large frond that looks like it should harbor dinosaurs. 
Lots of Pacific iris, some Lilium varieties/species (those that survive elk, deer and voles from year to year), Erythronium species, Trillium species, several Allium (crenulatum, cernuum, and more in seed pots). 

Thousands of Hyacinthoides xmassartina, a legacy bulb that I cannot eliminate, only subdue. I resort to pulling foliage and flowers on a cloudy cool day during flowering each year to reduce seed set. 

[janemcgary]

I recently read "Otherlands," by Thomas Halliday, an episodic look back through geological time at the life forms of different eras. Hope it's all right to quote this:
Otherlands, by Thomas Halliday
p. 67 (Kindle ed.)
 
"What is important in conserving an ecosystem is conserving the functions, the connections between organisms that form a complete, interacting whole. In reality, species do move, and the notion of a 'native' species is inevitably arbitrary, often tied into national identity. In Britain, 'native' plants and animals are those that have existed there only since before Columbus landed in the Caribbean. These plants and animals have legal protection over and above 'aliens', but there is oh easy distinction between native and non-native ranges for species, and non-native plants are not necessarily damaging to native diversity. Dwarf nettles, for instance, are not considered a 'native' British plant, but they are near universally present and have been recorded in Britain well into the Pleistocene. The milk thistle Lactuca serriola, which grows wild across Eurasia and North Africa and is the ancestor of cultivated lettuces, is considered a native plant in Germany but is explicitly an 'ancient introduction' I Poland and the Czech Republic, and has been described as 'invasive' I the Netherlands.
                "So it is that even in neutral biological terminology, that of dispersal and migration, carries with it an uncomfortable ring of political language. ... The human imposition of borders on the world inevitably changes our perception of what 'belongs' where, but to look into deep time is to see only an ever-changing list of inhabitants of one ecosystem or another. That is not to say that native species do not exist, only that the concept of native that we so easily tie to a sense of place also applies to time."