by Kristi Vitelli
It is finally Spring! This is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on whether you enjoy yardwork, dread yardwork or need to start paying the landscaper their monthly fee to do your yardwork. If you are in the last two categories, you might want to consider a new type of landscape, which requires much less maintenance.
After joining the Pollinator Pathway group in Glastonbury, I found a wealth of information on their website offering tips about how to make my yard a hospitable landscape for the local pollinators and those just passing through. One thing that especially intrigued me, was learning that I should wildscape my yard. If you want to learn how to wildscape your yard the Glastonbury Pollinator Pathway group is hosting a presentation this evening April 8, at 6:30 p.m. with Ted Johnson, of Wildscape Landscaping, titled Straight Talk About Using Native Plants in Your Garden. You can register to for the talk at https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArcOGtpjgqHtI648Dp44sOH9bgMZckfo7I.
It turns out that without realizing it, I have been slowly wildscaping my yard since I moved here 29 years ago. I have been reducing the area that I need to mow each year in several ways. My five-year plan that I started 29 years ago included replacing large areas of lawn with groundcover, adding small butterfly gardens and planting an herb garden.
Being unsure what kind of groundcover would spread fastest and take over the most area previously inhabited by turf grass in my pine shaded frontage, I decided to host a friendly “competition” between two groundcovers that I had seen do well at other homes. When I planted the groundcovers, I informed each one that the best performing groundcover would be the winner and I would remove the loser and plant more of the winner.
There are people who believe you should talk to your plants and others who think you are nutty if you talk to your plants. I am somewhere in between, but do try to pass along compliments when warranted, and threats from my husband when he sees a non-performer who should be eliminated.
As it turns out, neither groundcover that I planted did very well. However, several other groundcovers have moved in on their own gobbling up areas once held by the groundcovers I planted and spreading through areas once inhabited by a struggling lawn. Over the years I welcomed all of these groundcovers, except the poison ivy, because anything that grew low and looked nice while eliminating my need to mow was in my mind a good thing.
I thought I was being a good gardener by allowing plants in my yard that lessened mowing, which pollutes the environment. After reading the postings on the Pollinator Pathway website and doing further research I discovered that some of the volunteer groundcovers I welcomed into my yard were both non-native and invasive. Others are native, but also considered to be invasive since they spread quickly taking over light, water, nutrients and space from native plants, trees and shrubs needed by pollinators for survival.
Instead of planting non-native groundcovers and allowing volunteers full reign in my yard, I should have been planting native plants which would accomplish my goal of reducing the area of my yard that needed to be mowed, and provide a hospitable rest stop for all the pollinators. Continuing with my five-year plan, I am now going to start building meadows in my yard where I previously relied upon groundcovers.
Since I live on a wooded lot, there is not enough room to have a large meadow like was recently featured in Martha Stewart’s magazine. Martha took a large area previously inhabited by a vegetable garden and converted it into a flowering pollinator paradise. Looking at this beautiful meadow reminded me of my childhood dream of getting married in a meadow of wildflowers. On a sunny day in August of 1975, in a meadow of wildflowers high above Aspen, Colorado, my best friend’s sister was married in her bare feet carrying a bouquet of just picked wildflowers. The wedding was beautiful, simple and at one with nature. In addition to the invited guests were the residents of the meadow, who included bees, birds, butterflies and moths. It was the flower-child thing to do. I thought it was the perfect wedding.
When I finally got married in the early 1990s, after most hippies had rejoined the establishment, it was in a church in the middle of downtown Denver and I was wearing shoes, because that was the thing to do. However, I never forgot about the childhood dream of a perfect wedding in a field of wildflowers. I guess it all worked out because even though my wedding took place on July 3rd, it snowed in Colorado that day, which would have spoiled my meadow wedding.
Having learned that meadows of native wildflowers are not just beautiful, but essential to preserving our ecosystem, I am excited to embark on a journey to create my own mini meadows with lots of native plants. I live in a pine forest, so there are not too many areas with enough light to plant flowers, but thanks to Eversource, who comes by every few years with their tree trimming crew, I gain a little more sun every few years.
Because I am not the best gardener, and things do not always go as planned or progress on schedule, my meadow has time to take shape before my next big wedding anniversary. I am hopeful that it will not snow and that I can pick a bouquet of wildflowers and renew my vows barefoot in my meadow.
*This article was pushblished prior to the Green on the Corner series.