Hairy Bittercress or Lesser-Seeded Bittercress? Don’t take your eyes off the ball! A ubiquitous weed in our landscape is hairy bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta. Now begins the time of year for scouting these tricksters, just as much of the gardening work winds down. The first time I saw this plant in our landscape beds was probably…
Author: Terri Litchfield
Native Groundcovers: On the Sunny Side of the Street – the long and the short of it Part III
Groundcovers for sun are a bit trickier if we’re looking at the very low growing options. (A list of our taller groundcovers can be found at the end of this post.) Often the surrounding plants, being taller, end up shading these low growers, so they’re no longer in the full sun they prefer. This limits…
Native Groundcovers: Made in the Shade Part II
This week we’re covering additional shade-loving, low-growing plants which provide the functions of groundcovers as described in Part I. Here are five more short native groundcovers that do well in shade and that grow here at Catchfly Commons: Pachysandra procumbensAllegheny Spurge Native pachysandra is an important early spring source of pollen for native bees. To…
Asters and Goldenrods in a Home Garden? You Bet!
Asters and goldenrods are major actors at this time of the year in the native plant garden because of their high value as late season nectar sources for pollinators and migrating butterflies. Goldenrods are represented in three genera, listed here with the number of Ohio native species in each: Solidago (25), Euthamia (2), and Oligoneuron…
Native Groundcovers: Made in the Shade Part I
The 2023 Open Garden at Catchfly Commons highlighted 26 native plant species that perform the functions of groundcovers in this landscape. They shade out and (hopefully) outcompete weeds, help moderate soil temperatures, and keep the soil surface from drying out. Their root systems can help stabilize soil, and a matrix of groundcovers can form an…
What’s in a Name – The Coneflowers
What comes to mind when you picture coneflowers? Purple Coneflower? Orange Coneflower? Upright Prairie Coneflower? These three examples, all from the Aster family, Asteraceae, represent the three genera of plants native to Ohio with “coneflower” in their common names. “Cone,” of course, is a reference to the center disk of the flower head. ECHINACEAS According…
IS THIS PLANT NATIVE?
Ask The Biota of North America Program, http://www.bonap.org We’ll leave the subject of how we define native for another post. (At Catchfly Commons, we don’t necessarily base “native” on state boundaries.) BONAP is a go-to site for determining the distribution of plants1. If you’ve clicked on RANGE MAP on a prairiemoon.com plant page for example,…
Native Monardas
What comes to mind when you think of Monardas? The red frilly blooms of Scarlet Bee Balm? The lavender flowers of Wild Bergamot? According to the BONAP website there are six straight species of monardas native to Ohio or this region1. Depending on conditions, all can do well in the landscape, and all are attractive…
Maintenance of Paths in the Garden
A walk on winding paths through landscape beds takes us away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. With native plants growing on either side of a wood chip path, we can appreciate what these plants add to the landscape. I usually enjoy weeding, with one exception. I detest weeding paths. I want to…
Welcome, Monarch Butterflies!
Milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) attract monarchs to the garden because they are the host plants for the caterpillars. Females lay eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves, which appear as very small white dots. The caterpillars evolved with milkweeds and are adapted to eat the foliage, which is distasteful and toxic to many other insects. Once…
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