Nothing beats a walk along the water on a hot day, but there’s no swimming in this pool, no matter how tempting. Beneath the sleek design of the Native Plant Garden is a thriving wetland habitat.
Kristin Schleiter is the NYBG’s Associate Vice President of Outdoor Gardens and Senior Curator. She oversees the wonderful gardening team that keeps our flowering gardens looking top notch, curates the herbaceous gardens and collections, and manages the curator of woody plants. She lives and gardens in Fairfield, CT.
As spring has turned to summer, so my attention has turned to the Native Plant Garden meadow. It changes daily now, with new plants offering their voices to the swelling chorus. One of my very favorites is Bush’s poppymallow, Callirhoe bushii. Set among fine grasses, golden tickseed, and brilliant white wild quinine, its white-eyed magenta cups demand attention.
Happy in average or dry soil, Bush’s poppymallow loves a sunny site and will flower throughout the summer and sporadically into the early fall. In our meadow, its loosely sprawling stems pop up through its neighbors, creating lovely and spontaneous living bouquets. It has seeded itself around gently, but editing is easy if you wish. All Callirhoe have taproots which makes them very drought tolerant, but also very difficult to move once established.
I like to think we combine equal measures of wild and cultivated at NYBG. Maybe it’s better to say that there are equal parts of each within the other.
Cutting back the Native Plant Garden’s meadow a few months ago left many wondering how quickly it would spring up again. The answer wasted no time getting here, and just in time for today’s summer solstice.
Split Rock in the Native Plant Garden – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen
Todd Forrest is the NYBG’s Arthur Ross Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections. He leads all horticulture programs and activities across the Garden’s 250-acre National Historic Landmark landscape, including 50 gardens and plant collections outside and under glass, the old-growth Thain Family Forest, and living exhibitions in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
The flowers of Penstemon cobaea var. purpurea are much larger than those of the other beard-tongues in the Native Plant Garden.
I am batty for beard-tongues. No, I don’t mean the furry-mouthed feeling that people with actual social lives get after long nights of too many cocktails, I mean the more than 250 species of Penstemon, a genus of perennials and biennials native to North America from the Maine woods to the alpine meadows of Idaho and the deserts of California. With tall clusters of flowers as beautiful as their common name is ugly (the moniker beard-tongue refers to tufts of hair that emerge from the sterile fifth stamen of certain species), beard-tongues carry late spring in the Native Plant Garden.
The most common beard-tongue in cultivation is Penstemon digitalis ‘Husker Red’, selected in 1983 by Dr. Dale Lindgren of the University of Nebraska for its maroon leaves, long-lasting inflorescences of white flowers, and extreme hardiness (it thrives in Nebraska!). We planted ‘Husker Red’ in the Native Border, where its flowers bridge the gap between the peaks of mid-spring and mid-summer bloom, and its foliage adds a dash of welcome color throughout the growing season.
Happy Father’s Day! Here’s to all the dads out there that—even if they’re a bit prickly—will always have a heart of gold. We’ll be chilling on Daffodil Hill for the Big Backyard BBQ all afternoon, so feel free to join us if you’re in the mood for good food, beer, and music.
Prickly pear (Opuntia humifusa) in the Native Plant Garden – Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen