Plant dreaming
We went to a Wild Seed Project plant sale in southern Maine last Saturday. I’m stumbling along in my self-landscaping with natives, but I am trying! I started the circle garden in May 2023 when Sam pulled out a stump and filled in the circular hole with topsoil. Since then I’ve had it planted with various natives. Some do well and some not so well. Some move around and some disappear. Some the deer eat and some they leave alone. It’s a learning process.
I’m going to need to make the garden bigger to give room to the plants and to eliminate more lawn. I was having trouble visualizing a bigger garden – seems elementary? but I needed some visual models. I was happy to see two examples at the site of the Wild Seed Project plant sale, Turkey Hill Farm.
I will need to move some thriving plants around, but I feel more confident now. And we have plenty of rocks, so the rock border is definitely doable!
This year, I bought more of the varieties I already have, plants I know are sturdy, deer-resistant, and suited for the hot dry summers (relatively!) that we are having.
- Bradbury beebalm – blooms in June
- Spotted beebalm – blooms in August/September
- Lavender hyssop
- Butterfly milkweed – orange flowers
- Virginia mountain mint
- Broad-leaved mountain mint
The Turkey Hill property features a couple of interesting buildings and some sweet wood piles. This circular one has a plank roof.
From Wild Seed Project’s website:
Plants grown at the Native Seed Center won’t be isolated from their habitat, as they often are in commercial nurseries. Our plants will grow in and among nature, in living seed banks, along the woodland edge, throughout the marshland, in the farmstead meadow. This gives these plants their best shot at evolving and adapting to a rapidly changing and unpredictable climate.
The Native Seed Center will serve as a living example for visitors. We’ll be able to show our communities what biodiversity looks like in action.
Catherine~ Oh this looks like such a worthy place to spend some time. My sister went to an event to get milkweed plants. Last time they did not survive, so she’s hoping for more luck this time around (got the little domes to cover them til they get bigger).
A video channel I watch, the woman mentioned she did not know how to get started on her backyard. It was a big square of much grass. But, there was a small flower bed in the middle, so she went with her late father’s plan of placing a birdbath in the center and planting out from there. Ripples, I like to think 🙂 Good luck with your plans.
That’s what I ended up doing – expanding the garden from the center, just along one side. A big temptation to overthink, especially when it comes to plants. They might need a lot of space, or be shorter or taller than I expect. But I can always transplant them. I’m already transplanting some from the original circle garden that are clearly in the wrong sort of place.