GARDENING IN HARMONY WITH NATURE IN THE NORTHEAST

Native Plants for Sunny Edge

A woodland garden can offer additional micro-habitats when natural or man-made openings in the forest canopy exist. This is often the case near roads, streams, houses, or woodland clearings. In these locations direct sun exposure can be in excess of 4 hours a day, and sun or part-sun loving plants may be introduced. Imagine the surprise seeing the native Eastern Prickly Pear in bloom in the woodland garden.

Once a suitable partly sunny area has been identified, check for its drainage. In moist bottom-land areas a different set of plants will thrive than in dry upland sites. Note that the plants for moist sites tend to be taller than the ones in dry sites.

Here are our favorites plants for the Sunny Edge:

PART 1: Moist (but not Boggy) Sites

Joe Pye Weed

Funny that the first 3 of our favorite plants for sunnier-than-usual woodland conditions all contain the word “weed” in their name. We consider their toughness as an asset, not a liability. They do grow rather tall, and they spread, so plant them in an area with plenty of space and you won’t be disappointed. Joe Pye Weed forms dense colonies of tall, upright plants topped by clouds of pink flowers that are relished by all kinds of insects. Young shoots emerge late in spring, but the plant grows very fast in summer. Do not cut down after blooming, since the seeds are a valuable food source for birds and the dry flower stalks provide winter interest for the informal garden.

Purple Milkweed

Watch out for Purple Milkweed at native plant sales and if you see it, buy it! This rare native is no doubt the showiest of the milkweeds. Beautiful dark purple flowers bloom for a long time and quite a bit earlier than the other milkweed species such as swamp milkweed, common milkweed, or butterfly weed. The plant resembles common milkweed, but is not quite as tall and looks much more refined. It is a bit floppy and may benefit from support of neighboring upright vegetation. This species is suitable even for formal gardens. Establishment can be difficult. The plant spreads very slowly where happy.

Common Milkweed

If you love beneficial insects in general and the Monarch Butterfly in particular, get Common Milkweed and give it space to spread. The underground runners can travel 3-4 feet in a year. they will cross paths into neighboring beds. We just pull the ones that pop up where we don’t want them. The amount of insects small and large that this plant supports is simply astounding. And of course, if your woodland has insects, the birds will be there too!

Gray-headed Coneflower, Yellow Coneflower

We found this nice plant growing in masses at a restoration site and collected seed four our garden. Gray-headed (or Yellow) Coneflower flowers can be difficult to differentiate from the more common Cutleaf Coneflower, but the foliage is actually quite different. Gray-headed Coneflower is also a little shorter, and not as floppy as the Cutleaf Coneflower. Flowers are long-blooming and especially interesting when the petals start to appear. Gray-headed Coneflower combines well with Common Milkweed, Wild Senna, Anise Hyssop, and various Beebalms, playing the role of a filler plant in our garden. Large amounts of seed are available for Goldfinches and other songbirds in fall/winter.

Great Coneflower, Cabbage-Leaf Coneflower

Aptly-named Cabbage-Leaf Coneflower impresses through its fantastic foliage. The basal leaves dominating in spring are huge and numerous and the blue-tinted color is simply gorgeous. In summer floppy slender stems shoot up 6 feet and yellow coneflowers with huge center cones appear. Each flower produces vast amounts of seed for the Goldfinches in fall/winter. Note that this plant may require staking or a fence that it can lean on (at least in our part-shade environment).

Wild Senna

Like Cabbage-leaf Coneflower, we value this plant mainly for its foliage. Wild Senna has beautiful compound leaves and a strong upright habit. It emerges quite late in spring, but after a summer growth-spurt it over-towers the surrounding plants in our garden. Cute yellow flowers in open clusters appear in late-summer and big pea-like black seed pods develop in fall. This is a vigorous and under-used native for the part-shade garden.

Purple-Flowering Raspberry

With beautiful large maple-shaped leaves and no thorns, Purple-Flowering Raspberry is at home in borders of native gardens where it has room to spread and form 3-6′ thickets. The large fragrant flowers attract bees as well as humans. Berries are edible. We let this plant fill in between shrubs such as Sweet Pepperbush and Spicebush as well as understory trees such as Dogwoods. If needed, it can be cut down to the ground in winter to give neighboring plants some more space.

Purple Coneflower

Purple Coneflower is a fantastic plant to support pollinators during summer and goldfinches during fall and winter. We have the native species as well as some cultivars growing near a walkway. They self-seed readily and form a great combo with New England Asters that bloom after the Coneflowers.

Anise hyssop

The native Anise Hyssop is a tall plant with good foliage and nice flower clusters. We like the look a lot, but somehow our plants had a hard time competing with the other plants in a combination planting setting. Our clumps got smaller over the years and we wish it was more vigorous. Maybe the location or soil we planted it in was sub optimal.

Carolina Lupine

Carolina Lupine, reminiscent of Yellow False Indigo or Lupine when in flower, is a very tall plant with big flower clusters held high above the foliage. It blooms for a long time in summer and once it’s done blooming it has fall interest with its showy leaves and huge seed capsules. Carolina Lupine grows easily in our woodland garden setting and we even get the occasional seedlings that we eagerly transplant to favorable locations with enough space.

Iris × robusta ‘Gerald Darby’

This hybrid (Iris × robusta) of two native irises, Iris versicolor and Iris virginica, captivates by its multi-colored leaves, which are purple-blue at the base and green at the top. Flowers look like the typical blue iris flowers, but they are held on very dark purple-blue stems. A wonderful native hybrid with true multi-season interest that mixes well with other native plants such as the Golden Ragwort.

PART 2: Dry Sites

New England Aster

New England aster is a must-have for the fall garden. It’s profuse cheery flowers come in colors ranging form pink to purple. The image below shows the cultivar ‘Alma Poetschke’.

Indian Pink

The flowers of Indian Pink are super interesting, with yellow tips and red tubular throats. Each stem carries multiple flowers that bloom successively. When not in bloom, the foliage looks quite tidy, not more than 2 feet in height.

Fringed Bleeding Heart

Fringed bleeding heart may be small, but its wonderful delicate foliage and dark pink emerging flowers are great when inspected close up. Plant it where it can be walked up to. You will not be disappointed.

Threadleaf Blue Star

Threadleaf Blue Star has amazing needle-like foliage during the entire growing season. For a short time in early summer, blueish-white flower clusters appear on top. Interestingly, the stems continue growing after flowering and soon the growing foliage is the attractive part of the plant again. If that is not enough, in fall the entire plant turns bright yellow/orange. We grow this Blue Star (Amsonia hubrichtii) and its relatives (Amsonia illustris and Amsonia tabernaemontana) mainly for the fantastic fall color. Give them space since they like sun and grow 3 feet tall by fall.

Dwarf Blue Star

This dwarf form of Blue Star, growing only to 1.5′, deserves separate mention, since it requires less space than the other Amsonias, and has deeper blue flowers. It mixes well with other plants of similar height, such as Eupatorium coelestinum (Hardy Ageratum) or Penstemon digitalis (beardtongue).

Small’s Beardtongue

We only recently found out about this more delicate relative of the Foxglove Beardtongue and we like it a lot. It’s much more well behaved, long blooming, and attracts butterflies and bumblebees. Deep flowers have beautiful shades of pink.

Bradbury’s Monarda

There are many great native Beebalms worth growing for their signature flowers and wildlife value especially for hummingbirds and insects. Bradbury’s Monarda must be the earliest blooming species of the bunch, with pleasant light-purple flowers. The foliage is rather floppy, so it benefits from support by other more upright neighboring plants.

Downy Wood Mint

Downy Wood Mint pairs great with Bradbury’s Monarda in our woodland garden. It flowers at the same time in spring and the flowers look like triple-stacked monarda flowers. The color tone is a beautiful deep blue-purple. This plant probably likes drier sites than we originally seeded it in, so it declined over the years, and we will try again on a dry-ish slope with a bit more sun.

Wild Bergamot

Another Monarda that we find absolutely worth growing in part-sun environments, and that is available in many color tones from pink to purple, is the native Wild Bergamot. Like the red Monarda didyma, it blooms in the heat of summer when the garden is full of hungry bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

Short-Toothed Mountain Mint

The flowers of Mountain Mint may not look that attractive to humans, but they are extremely fragrant and oh are they attractive to bees and wasps. Mountain Mint can form a solid stand of 2′ high foliage where happy. The top leaves have a nice shade of greenish white, and they smell even more when crushed between the fingers.

Fire Pink

Fire Pink is a great self-seeding accent plant for the rock-garden setting. In our woodland it pops up in the most unexpected places on rock faces with very little soil. Beautiful pure red flowers (no pink at all) are carried in profusion on tall slender stems in summer.

Lance-leaved Loostrife

In early spring Lance-leaved Loostrife emerges from the ground in a very attractive dark brown color. Only later does the foliage turn green and even later small cheery yellow flowers appear in profusion. This plant is rarely encountered in gardens or nurseries, but we love the informal look. Currently we are trying to propagate it by digging up the spreading clump and dividing it.

Lyreleaf Sage

Lyreleaf Sage is a great choice for the sunnier and dryer locations in a woodland. Our cultivar has very appealing deep red rosettes early in the season. This is followed by prolific white tubular blooms that attract insects. The plant freely self-seeds where happy.

Fleabane ‘Lynnhaven Carpet’

This fleabane cultivar has very attractive hairy basal leaves and forms a thick groundcover by spreading rapidly. Daisy-like flowers in spring are also quite nice. Basal leaves last well into fall.

Prickly Pear

This cactus must be one of the most surprising plants one can encounter in a northeastern woodland. It likes rock-garden settings with at least part-sun exposure. It will grow in more shade but flowering is better in sun. The fruit is also an attractive red, but we never get to see or taste it, since the chipmunks get it before we can.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Blue Star (Amsonia tabernaemontana): upright 3′ clumps, blue flowers, yellow fall color

Ozark Blue Star (Amsonia illustris): upright 3′ clumps, blue flowers, yellow fall color

White Wild Bergamot (Monarda clinopodia): Similar to Wild Bergamot with white flowers.

Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa): Dry sunny areas. Great butterfly plant.

Bluebeard, (Caryopteris x Clandonensis) ‘Dark Knight’: Dry sunny areas. Bees love it.

Blue False Indigo (Baptisia australis): Very fine foliage. Nice clumping habit.

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris): Low-growing Wetland Plant

Blue Flag Iris (Iris versicolor): 2′ wetland plant

Copper Iris (Iris fulva): 2′ wetland plant, southern native

American Bellflower (Campanula americana): 2′, blue flowers, for informal gardens

Allegheny Monkey Flower (Mimulus ringens): 2-3′, Blue flowers, for informal gardens

Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis): Nice in combination with Dwarf Blue Star or Lobelias

Flat-Topped Aster (Doellingeria umbellata): Nice tall aster for naturalizing in woods.

New York Aster (Aster novi-belgii): Very similar to New England Aster.

Bolton’s Aster (Boltonia asteroides): Tall spreading plant, White flowers. May be too aggressive for garden situations.

Aromatic Aster (Aster Oblongifolius) ‘October Skies’: Woody stems, low growing, nice flowers and more deer resistant than New England Aster.

Heartleaf Skullcap (Scutellaria ovata): Dry sites. Combine with Aromatic Aster.

Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia): Dainty wildflowers

Cutleaf Coneflower (Rudbecka laciniata): Very tall coneflower. Needs support from surrounding plants.

Virgin’s Bower (Clematis virginiana): Native Vine

Beebalm (Monarda) E.g. ‘Beauty of Cobham’: Pink flowering Monarda. Lots of other great Monarda species and cultivars are available.

Interesting non-native woodland species for controlled areas:

Daylily, Agastache rugosa ‘Golden Jubilee’, Anemone Tomentosa ‘Robustissima’, Anemone hybrida ‘Pamina’, Calamint, Toad Lily