What I Learned at Gardner's Big Day
A couple of weeks ago, I attended Gardener's Big Day at Dickson Mounds in Lewiston, IL. The event was organized by the Fulton County Master Gardeners. It was a really great time and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about gardening. Many other Master Gardener around each state put on similar events.
One of the workshops I attended was "Native Plants". The speaker was Carey Boehm-Corrie from Boehm's Garden Center in Rushville, IL. She started off the class by talking about common invasive plants found in our yards. I learned I had two, Reed Canary Grass and Butterfly Bush! I was shocked to learn Butterfly Bush was invasive because every nursery sells it saying "it will attract butterflies". It turns out, the nectar does nothing for the butterflies found in central Illinois. So last weekend I ripped both of those plants out. I replaced the butterfly bush with Butterfly Weed and the Reed Canary Grass with Little Bluestem grass.
Both of these are native to Central Illinois. She said that Missouri Botanical Gardens have compiled a list of invasive plant species that is really good along with the The Chicago Botanic Garden. I highly recommend that you check both out before you go purchase plants, or take it along with you to make sure you are not buying invasive plants for your garden. If you are in Illinois, check out Illinois Natural History Survey for a list of native plants to Illinois.
There are definitely lots of resources out there to help you to choose the right plants. It is very important to not choose invasive plants for your garden. They do nothing for your garden, pollinators, etc and they end up taking over other plants and your garden. Unfortunately, many nurseries do not sell native plants, they sell what is "pretty", but won't necessarily help your garden.
She also recommended this book: Bringing Nature Home. I am going to check it out!
Another workshop I attended was "Shady Characters" and the speaker was Bob Streitmatter from Luthy Botanical Garden in Peoria. To tell what kind of shade you have, you need to figure out how much sunlight you garden gets:
Full Shade - Less than 3 hours a day
Dappled Shade - Dappled sunlight, some sunlight coming through the branches of deciduous trees
Partial Sun/Partial Shade - 3 - 6 hours of sun each day. Plants in this category need some relief from intense afternoon sun, either from a tree or plant on the east side
Full Sun - At least 6 hours of daylight
Something nice to add to a shade garden would be a water feature. Something with moving water so the mosquitoes won't hang around. He listed many good shade plants, too many for me to type. If you are interested, contact me and I can e-mail you the list!
The last workshop I went to was "Vertical Gardening" and the speakers were Cheryl Briseno and Mel Tracy. They said that one 4 square foot vertical garden produces more vegetation than a 24 square foot plot!
For their vertical garden, they used: 2 closet shelf brackets, a long steel pipe or wooden staircase rail, nylon trellis netting, garden stakes, cinder blocks, railroad ties, straw bales, or a long plant container, amended soil, zip ties, and plant markers.
They placed the railroad ties 18" out from the wall of their garage in a 4sq ft area. Attached the closet shelf brackets to the garage and attached the trellis netting to the brackets and staked them in the box.
To make the soil they used Mel Bartholonew's Soil Mix Recipe: 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 coarse vermiculite. These are measured by volume, not weight.
A few sites they suggested to check out:
www.cedarstore.com
www.jungseed.com
www.henryfields.com
www.kitchengardenseeds.com
www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com
www.verticalgardensolutions.com
Again if you want a list of plants you can use in a vertical garden, let me know and I can e-mail it to you!
One of the workshops I attended was "Native Plants". The speaker was Carey Boehm-Corrie from Boehm's Garden Center in Rushville, IL. She started off the class by talking about common invasive plants found in our yards. I learned I had two, Reed Canary Grass and Butterfly Bush! I was shocked to learn Butterfly Bush was invasive because every nursery sells it saying "it will attract butterflies". It turns out, the nectar does nothing for the butterflies found in central Illinois. So last weekend I ripped both of those plants out. I replaced the butterfly bush with Butterfly Weed and the Reed Canary Grass with Little Bluestem grass.
 | |
| Schizachyrium scoparium 'The Blues' - Little Bluestem |
 |
| Asclepias tuberosa - Butterfly Weed |
There are definitely lots of resources out there to help you to choose the right plants. It is very important to not choose invasive plants for your garden. They do nothing for your garden, pollinators, etc and they end up taking over other plants and your garden. Unfortunately, many nurseries do not sell native plants, they sell what is "pretty", but won't necessarily help your garden.
She also recommended this book: Bringing Nature Home. I am going to check it out!
Another workshop I attended was "Shady Characters" and the speaker was Bob Streitmatter from Luthy Botanical Garden in Peoria. To tell what kind of shade you have, you need to figure out how much sunlight you garden gets:
Full Shade - Less than 3 hours a day
Dappled Shade - Dappled sunlight, some sunlight coming through the branches of deciduous trees
Partial Sun/Partial Shade - 3 - 6 hours of sun each day. Plants in this category need some relief from intense afternoon sun, either from a tree or plant on the east side
Full Sun - At least 6 hours of daylight
Something nice to add to a shade garden would be a water feature. Something with moving water so the mosquitoes won't hang around. He listed many good shade plants, too many for me to type. If you are interested, contact me and I can e-mail you the list!
The last workshop I went to was "Vertical Gardening" and the speakers were Cheryl Briseno and Mel Tracy. They said that one 4 square foot vertical garden produces more vegetation than a 24 square foot plot!
For their vertical garden, they used: 2 closet shelf brackets, a long steel pipe or wooden staircase rail, nylon trellis netting, garden stakes, cinder blocks, railroad ties, straw bales, or a long plant container, amended soil, zip ties, and plant markers.
They placed the railroad ties 18" out from the wall of their garage in a 4sq ft area. Attached the closet shelf brackets to the garage and attached the trellis netting to the brackets and staked them in the box.
To make the soil they used Mel Bartholonew's Soil Mix Recipe: 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 coarse vermiculite. These are measured by volume, not weight.
A few sites they suggested to check out:
www.cedarstore.com
www.jungseed.com
www.henryfields.com
www.kitchengardenseeds.com
www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com
www.verticalgardensolutions.com
Again if you want a list of plants you can use in a vertical garden, let me know and I can e-mail it to you!
Comments
Post a Comment