Goodbye, natives? Reason Xeriscape Garden on Hilton Head Island is so important
Of course I was nervous. It's hard not to be when you've got a group of Master Gardeners from Beaufort County coming to Hilton Head Island to tour the town's Xeriscape Garden.
A sleepless night? Not really. I had the reassurance of the best help one could get -- four experienced local Master Gardeners who'd worked planting, pruning and weeding once a week the past two years in the garden. Becky Yearout, Mim Jacobs, Rosemary Krarz and Sherry Wojtulewicz joined me in creating what has become an educational show garden of native plants. Yearout, Jacobs and Wojtulewicz served as tour guides.
Also, Daniel Payne, native plant expert from Coosaw Island, has given the Xeriscape Garden a visual encyclopedia of those plants that once grew in our forests and roadsides. Payne brought a Lobelia cardinalis and a spring starflower to be added to the entrance show garden. The show is on most months of the year there, with flowering natives including blazing star (Liatris spicata), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), Coral Bean (Erythrina herbacea), Ruellia caroliniensis and, in bloom now, the bright blue of mistflower (Eupatorium coelestinum).
After the good-byes, I captured Payne for another hour. Who could let go of this learning opportunity?
Payne explained that because of the burning and clearing of our woodlands, we have lost most of our native plants. What wildflowers were to be found were found under trees and around utility poles. Clearing under trees and spraying around utility poles has further reduced their number. That is why the Xeriscape Garden is so important; it gives us a history of the progression of development with its loss of habitat.
Back home and in my own yard, I gave a salute to the cluster of bright yellow swamp sunflowers and the dozen or more Chrysanthemum (Dendranthema) plants, three of which are newly bought. Come again? That's right, there are many "mum" plants flowering now that are three or more years old and ever blooming. For years, I've grown this plant -- like so many of us -- as my main decorative autumn plant. They are now decorating the garden in spring, summer, fall and part of the winter. The three plants from Blooms of Bressingham that are clearly marked "flower power in late summer and fall" have not ceased to flower since received and planted in April.
That's Mother Nature getting me all mixed up.
From "Betsy Anne's Garden Journal": A yard with cobwebs is a healthy yard.
Sixty-year master gardener and environmentalist Betsy Jukofsky has spent three decades on Hilton Head Island learning the peculiarities of Coastal Lowcountry gardening.
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This story was originally published October 25, 2014 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Goodbye, natives? Reason Xeriscape Garden on Hilton Head Island is so important."