Native Plant Sales, Conferences, and Happenings - 2008:

The 58th Annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage & National Park Experience is April 23-27, 2008, in Gatlinburg, TN. The hikes and programs for this year are now available to view on the Web site. The pilgrimage is shorter this year by two days due to a shortage of park staff to lead hikes on Monday and Tuesday. However, the bulk of the programs are Wednesday through Saturday anyway, so the heart of the Pilgrimage remains as full and fun as ever with its wonderful array of outdoor and indoor activities. Online registration began March 10, 2008. To see the 2008 schedule, just click here. Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage

Native Gardens in Greenback, TN, is in the midst of its Spring Open Nursery Plant Sale now through April 12, 2008. Save a percentage off your total plant haul, from 5% for purchases up to $25 to an impressive 25% off $100 or more. Carpoolers to the nursery will be rewarded for their green ways with a free plant each. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday thru Thursday. The nursery is closed on Sunday. For more information and a mouth-watering look at the plant list, visit Native Gardens Web site on the links page.

Cedars of Lebanon State Park (TN) and the Center for Cedar Glade Studies at Middle Tennessee State University are hosting the annual Elsie Quarterman Cedar Glade Festival April 11-13, 2008, at the park. Lectures, hikes and nature walks will celebrate the unique beauty of the glades in spring. Dr. Quarterman and her family will attend the festival this year. She is being honored for her decades of scholarly work and study of the glades that garnered international attention and encouraged the appreciation and protection of this special ecosystem. To find out more and see an event schedule, click here. Elsie Quarterman Cedar Glade Festival

Reflection Riding's spring Wildflower Festival and Native Plant Sale is April 11-13, 2008, in Chattanooga, TN. Guided walks, gardening talks, and exhibits augment their fabulous plant sale. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fri/Sat and 1-5 p.m. Sunday.

Huntsville (AL) Botanical Garden's Spring Plant Sale is April 18-20, 2008, with a special members-only day the 17th. The sale features all types and kinds of plants, but they have a native plant section full of great garden treasures. Hours are 9 to 5 Fri/Sat and 1-5 Sunday. The last week in March they will give tours of their Nature Trail spotlighting the trillium garden, including a section where the trilliums are carefully blended into a natural forest habitat setting with companion plants. A propagation demonstration is planned. See their Web site (Links page) for more information.

Ohio-based Arc of the Appalachian Preserve System, along with various state and local agencies and organizations in that state, are sponsoring the 3rd Annual Southern Ohio Wildflower Pilgrimage April 17-20, 2008. Eighteen all-day field trips are scheduled for Friday & Saturday and 16 half-day trips for Sunday, all led by naturalists and botanists. Fore more info, click here. Highlands Sanctuary

GroWild Nursery's Native Plant Festival in Fairview, TN, is May 2 & 3, 2008. The nursery is open to the public with its wide range of southeastern native plants available for purchase. Guided hikes on the beautiful Highland Rim property, music, and a variety of refreshing goodies make for a great day of plant shopping. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Check GroWild's Web site on the links pages for directions.

The Millersville, PA, conference Native Plants in the Landscape is June 6-8, 2008. Speakers this year will discuss such topics as the 20th century native plant movement, garden design for children, the woods in your backyard, people and nature in the urban environment, operating a green business, biodiversity and landscape pests, controlling non-native invasives, woody natives, naturalistic gardening, deer control, organic landscapes, and genetic integrity of native plants. There will be field trips and a native plant sale. Home gardeners and professionals in the Mid-Atlantic and New England areas and elsewhere through the eastern U.S. are invited to attend. Registration is required and accommodations are available at Millersville University in Lancaster County. For more information, contact (717) 872-3030, npilc@yahoo.com or visit their Web site Native Plants in the Landscape @ Millersville.

Stay tuned for more spring 2008 events!


Connecting to Wildlife through Native Plants:
A wonderful new book was published last year (2007) that should be must reading for all gardeners. In Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens (Timber Press), author Douglas W. Tallamy makes a compelling biological argument for using native plants as the foundation of our maintained landscapes. This book has just been honored with the 2008 Silver Award of Achievement from the Garden Writers Association. Tallamy is a professor and chairs the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. His thesis centers on insects...not exactly an enticing prospect for most gardeners, yet, good teacher that he must be, he methodically presents his case clearly and convincingly. The first key point is predicated upon transfer of the sun's energy. Plants utilize the sun through photosynthesis to produce the sugars they need to live and become the first crucial link in the food chain. Nearly all other creatures get their energy directly or indirectly from these plants. The largest group of consumers responsible for transferring plant energy into animal energy is insects. Next, Tallamy explains the evolutionary path that establishes a dependent link between local plants and insects. Insects have developed the means to recognize and utilize certain local plants at different stages of their lives. The vast majority of insects lose this evolutionary association on non-native or exotic plant species, which they either don't recognize as food or cannot digest the plants' tissue. With few exceptions, exotic plants that evolved elsewhere have differing leaf chemistry, distinct even from closely related native species.

At first, gardeners might see this as a great excuse for using non-native plants. If they aren't chewed up by insects, then we'll have good looking plants that don't need chemical intervention. Tallamy anticipates this reaction and is ready. Insects don't just eat, he says, they get eaten, comprising the diet, often exclusively, of some of our most cherished backyard wildlife. What gardener isn't thrilled to find a bird's nest and watch the mother and father flying back and forth with food for hungry little beaks? Insects are the only food suited to baby birds. The health and quantity of an area's insect population directly affects the number of baby birds it can support. Tallamy has found that diverse landscapes of native plants will attract enough chewing insects and the predators that prey on them to hold plant disfigurement to a threshold low enough not to be noticeable. And in the meantime, we get to enjoy a wonderfully alive garden that functions as a healthy ecosystem should. Non-native plants take and keep the sun's energy and do not pass it up the food chain through insects. Therefore, they are non-functioning members of the ecosystem - taking light, water, nutrients, and space, but contributing nothing in return to the betterment of the community. In addition to the sterile void they create in native systems, non-native plants are also responsible for some of our worst headaches. Tallamy offers a depressing recitation of invasive plant infestations and the introduction of a jaw-dropping number of diseases and harmful insects (terrorizing plants in the garden and the wild) that have snuck into the U.S. on exotic nursery stock. This is not to cast aspersions on all exotic plants. Most do not cause direct harm to the environment and provide interest and beauty in our gardens. The point isn't to forego all exotics but to rely more heavily on native plants as the foundation of a landscape. Enjoying ornamental exotics in smaller doses as accent rather than structural backbone will allow the majority native plants to function ecologically and connect more effectively with nearby natural areas in spite of the intervening human presence.

Tallamy offers information on native plants that are particularly supportive of insects and provides a fascinating look at some of the insects a diverse native garden would attract. Who would think "bugs" could be so interesting? Tallamy makes it easier to like and appreciate these little crawlers and fliers for their intrinsic value and the indispensable role they play in healthy habitats through behavioral descriptions and fun anecdotes. The more gardeners understand the larger ecological framework within which they operate, the harder it is to dismiss other species - even insects - as disposable. From humans to the lowliest fly, we all play a part in this wonderful world. Cheerfully sharing our patch of land with fellow critters does not diminish our gardens; it enriches our lives.


Native Plant Alternatives to Exotic Invasive Plants
TN-EPPC's new brochure offers gardeners a comprehensive list of native plant alternatives to the exotic pest plants often used in private and public landscapes. The Tennessee Exotic Pest Plant Council is pleased to present this information as an effective tool to educate gardeners on the real threats posed by exotic invasives throughout the natural landscape of Tennessee and the southeast. However, understanding the problem and knowing which plants to avoid is only half of the issue. Most gardeners are equally if not more interested in learning which plants will give them a similar look, serve a similar purpose, or fill a similar niche without the invasive baggage. This brochure provides that key information.

Not all of the exotic pest plants in Tennessee or other states are available for horticulture. This brochure focuses on those species mostly likely to be cultivated in gardens or general landscapes. The characteristics that make a particular exotic invasive plant attractive to gardeners are listed, and for each exotic species one to several native plant alternatives are suggested along with the characteristics that make them excellent substitutes. This information moves beyond the finger-wagging "Don't Plant That!" and introduces a fabulous new world of cool plant material for our gardens.

Efforts are underway to share this brochure with Master Gardener programs, extension agencies, garden clubs, nurseries, botanic gardens, university horticultural programs, plant societies, and federal, state and local parks and nature centers. TN-EPPC has posted the brochure on its Web site (see the Links page) in a downloadable pdf format.

Native Shortcomings:
At a recent Cullowhee Conference, Native Plants in the Landscape, Atlanta commercial landscape architect Steve Sanchez, fearlessly faced front and center two of the bigger debates in native plant circles - the need for more cultivars and a few key landscaping niches where native plants are obviously lacking. On the latter topic he cited four areas where natives have a hard time competing commercially with non-natives, (1) groundcovers for sun, (2) evergreen shrubs, (3) evergreen trees, and (4) flowering trees and shrubs in colors other than white. While some perennials might suffice in smaller areas for the first complaint, Sanchez thinks our best hope is in native grasses. Getting the general public to go for the native grass look is key to addressing sun groundcovers. The list of evergreen shrubs and trees is fairly thin, aside from some coastal plain and mountain species. Pines and red cedar are often viewed as too ubiquitous to be considered seriously in the buying public. The hunt for an "evergreen" look is likely to take folks out of the native flora of their region. Sanchez admits that the last shortcoming is a minor issue but points out that a majority of our toughest and most useful woody species have white flowers rather than the colorful rainbow of many Asian counterparts. This leads to his plea for more cultivars as a way to broaden the color palette, improve disease resistance, provide variety in flower display, foliage, fall color, and form (especially dwarfs), and benefit from the advantages of provenance in locally propagated species. The cultivar issue alone splits many native plant enthusiasts in a way that makes the current red state/blue state divide look tame. When putting together the native plant alternatives to invasives brochure here in Tennessee, we faced many of these same issues. With some exotic species it is hard to find an exact native match. Many alternatives just don't really perform in the same way or to the same degree. It's tough to find a native plant that will take the broad conditions English ivy will endure, has evergreen, shiny leaves, and can serve as a dense groundcover. This is our challenge - to help set a new standard of public expectations for the landscape while bringing native plants into the mainstream nursery trade and honoring the ethics that bind us physically, emotionally and spiritually to the natural world.

Margie's Speaking Dates:


Georgia Perennial Plant Association, Atlanta -- June 17, 2008
Native Plants for the Perennial Border


New Neighbors Garden Club, Brentwood, TN -- June 24, 2008
TBA


Alabama Master Gardener Mini-Conference, Hanceville, AL -- Sept. 23, 2008
Gardening with Native Plants in the Southeast


Horticultural Society of Middle Tennessee, Nashville -- Oct. 24, 2008
Gardening with Native Plants



Contact me for more information.