All-Americans

Flip through Native Plants for North American Gardens by Allan Armitage and two things quickly become obvious. One, Northwest natives are not very well represented in this book. Two, a surprising number of the border plants we traditionally grow in gardens are native to some part of North America. Aster, coreopsis, phlox, penstemon, echinacea, rudbeckia, tall lobelia, liatris all originate in North America, most of them in the prairies and meadows of eastern NA, where rain can occur at any time of year.

Although many of these plants are moderately drought tolerant, they have not evolved with regularly dry summers. They do not need to complete their yearly growth cycle before mid-summer, as many Willamette Valley natives do. So many of them bloom in summer, even in late summer. No wonder gardeners value them. Many have been subjected to breeding programs in the US and, especially, Europe, with a goal of selecting new colors and plant forms, or bigger or more elaborate flowers and so on. These cultivars have their uses, but gardeners who appreciate the unique qualities and special grace of plants selected by nature herself will tend to prefer the original version.

This natural look is the best argument I can think of for seeking these plants out.
It isn’t easy to come up with a convincing argument for making a garden exclusively of American natives. If you plant things that do not naturally occur in your region, why stop at the boundaries of one continent? But some of the lesser known North American natives, in particular, make charming additions to any perennial garden, and if they originate in places where it routinely rains in the summertime, they’ll adapt well to a conventional watering regime that supports a variety of garden perennials. Here are a few of my personal favorites. All of them should look at home mixed in with Northwest natives that tolerate the same conditions.

Amsonia tabernaemontana (Eastern blue star flower)
Willow leafed amsonia (A. t. var. salicifolia) has narrow leaves, giving the plant a particularly graceful look. It grows to about 2 feet. Amsonias bloom in late spring or early summer, with flowers in a cool, pure blue. The foliage turns gold in autumn. Another species, A. hubrichtii, has even narrower leaves. According to Armitage, this has the best fall color, but it is taller and may need staking.

Gillenia trifoliata (bowman’s root)
This is one of my favorite plants. Reddish, wiry stems and pretty foliage look especially handsome as the plant emerges in the spring. A haze of airy, pinky-white flowers soon follows, hovering about the plant like so many skimpy moths. This graceful plant is a good companion to showier flowers such as lilies, but is not very drought tolerant.

Helenium autumnale (dogtooth daisy)
The wild type, like taller cultivars, can grow to 4 or 5 feet in gardens. In lush conditions, and without a mass of prairie grass to hold it up, it often falls over, and not in a pretty way. It is worth holding out for shorter selections of this plant (such as Wyndley Copper, 30 inches, blooming now). Varieties are available with flowers in yellow, bronze or rusty red and seem to require less water than black eyed Susans (rudbeckia).

Thermopsis villosa (or T. caroliniana) (Carolina false lupine)
This was, for some reason, one of the first plants I put in my Midwestern garden years ago, and I’ve grown it ever since. Think of it as an early blooming, light yellow lupine. It grows to about three feet.

Veronicastrum virginicum (culver’s root)
As the name implies, this is related to veronica, but it is more architectural: whorls of leaves march up tall, stately stems, the tips of which bear white, lavender or pale pink spires of little flowers in summer. Entirely self supporting in sun, and an excellent, carefree addition for the back of a border.

I have grown all these plants in Eugene for several years. They are not particular about soil and all tend to grow productively for years without division. Some may be difficult to find locally, though I purchased all of them, at various times, from retail nurseries in Eugene.

Common Ground

I must thank this year’s BRING Home and Garden Tour for getting me over to the Common Ground Garden. Billed as the first neighborhood garden in Eugene growing on a city street, it all started when Anne and Chris Donahue began growing food on a city right of way next to their yard on the west side of Van Buren Street in SW Eugene. Anne Donahue had been mowing that strip of grass for years when, five or six years ago, an idea came to her. Why not use it to provide food for area residents? Pretty soon there were 11 tomato plants and a 50 foot row of beans growing there. “It seemed a wonderful way to give back to the neighborhood,” she says.

A couple of years back, Carlos Barrera, a member Friendly Neighborhood Famers (FNF), said to Donahue “What about the plot across the street?” “Well, it’s a beautiful spot for a vegetable garden,” she responded, “but I can’t do it.” No time, no energy to spare. Doug Black, also a member of FNF, says there was talk about doing something there for years, but things came to a head after he and Katie Lewis brought a 2009 Green Neighbors Bike tour through the area. “We were standing at Annie’s looking at that big, gaping unpaved right of way across the street,” Black says. Donahue remembers him telling the crowd “One day we’ll have a community garden on that site.”

By September, Donahue was resigned to the fact that the garden had to happen. But she worried about where the energy would come from, and whether there would be enough people to take it on. Enter Robin Scott. In 2008, she had set up an online social netwoking site to organize urban farmers in the Friendly Neighborhood (http://www.eugenefriendlyfarmers.ning.com/). Now she used that site to ask, “Who wants to share this vision for a Friendly Neighborhood garden?” In response, at least a dozen people showed up for a first meeting, took a look at the site and said “Lets do it.”

“I was thrilled,” Donahue says. “We envisioned the garden and talked about a name.” It was Black who suggested ‘Common Ground’. The group hired a tractor service to haul out concrete debris and till up the grassy area with amendments, and in October there was a work party to measure out some beds . By June of this year, those beds were producing beets, chard, cauliflower, garlic, broccoli, kale, spinach, lettuce, bushels of snap peas and more.

Progress was helped by a city neighborhood matching grant that went to buy tools and the ICOSA hut (a pentagonal-shape dome shelter made from salvaged materials) built recently by Resurrected Refuse Action Team (http://www.rractionteam.com/). Carlos Barrera installed the recycled kiosk, used for posting upcoming tasks and long range plans, and a bench he built from snow boards he found in a dumpster. A bike rack is coming soon, along with raised beds close to the street for alter-abled access

Donahue, who volunteers her time to help create the Common Ground Garden, told me: “After that first meeting I presented our idea to the city, asking may we do this? Can we put in for a grant?” The City was enthusiastic. In fact it was an initiative the City of Eugene would like to encourage more of. Because of the success of Common Ground Garden, Donahue says, we can expect to see more neighborhood gardens growing throughout Eugene: on a professional level, Donahue, the City of Eugene Compost Specialist, looks to replicate the model and provide assistance for projects of this type.

Friendly Neighborhood Farmers (FNF) has about 375 members; the special interest group for the Common Ground Garden numbers 40. Scott and Black now co-administer the website, thanks to which, Scott says, “we are able to tap into a larger audience, including younger people and others who wouldn’t necessarily come to a neighborhood meeting.”

Black, who serves on the Neighborhood Leaders Council Committee on Sustainability, is really excited about the venture. “This is a win win win win win. It’s building empowerment and community cohesion. It mitigates climate change, since anything you grow at home doesn’t have to be shipped here, consuming energy. It makes people more self sufficient. Fifty percent of the kids in nearby schools use the school lunch program (a measure of economic insecurity), and some of them help out here. This is priceless social capital, for a fairly minimal investment”.

Work parties at the Common Ground Garden are 10-12 AM on the first two Saturdays of each month, and 2-4PM on the second two Sundays. Come and work, leave with produce.