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Plant of the Month: Hairy Beardtongue
Posted on by ridgetownrick
Scientific Name: Penstemon hirsutus
June is typically a quieter time in my gardens, with the rush of spring ephemerals long done and the riot of summer colours not quite upon us yet. Perhaps that is why I find Hairy Beardtongue so appealing. It starts its long blooming period, with its soft, powdery purple and white flowers, when most of my garden is still rather green.
As usual, the Plant Description and In the Garden sections are courtesy of Shawn Booth from In Our Nature. The content of this article is excerpted from our book The Gardener’s Guide to Native Plants of the Southern Great Lakes Region (Firefly Books), available wherever you buy your books.
Family: Scrophulariaceae (Figwort Family)
Alternate Common Names: Hairy Penstemon, Dwarf Hairy Penstemon, Eastern Penstemon, Northeastern Beardtongue, Pride of the Mountain
Plant description: Hairy Beardtongue features green to reddish brown, hairy stems. Along the stems are opposite, lance-shaped leaves with pointed tips and toothed edges.
Native Plant Nursery: Rosemont Meadows Native Plants
Posted on by ridgetownrick
Owner/Proprietor: Emma Murphy
Address: 21 Katherine St., Lakefield, Ontario
Web Site: Not yet! Hopefully sometime this year!
Email: rosemontmeadowsnativeplants@gmail.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/rosemontmeadows.nativeplants
Other Social Media: IG – https://www.instagram.com/rosemont_meadows_native/
When I started to grow native plants, almost 20 years ago now, there were a small handful of native plant nurseries in Ontario. As the demand has grown, so has the number of sources of native plants, as it seems more and more gardeners are realizing the benefits of “growing native”. And since I am constantly scouring the web for native plant nurseries, I am often rewarded with finding new (or almost new) businesses catering to the native plant gardening public. This month’s native plant nursery profile is one such new discovery for me.
ARTICLE: Of Curves and Optical Illusions
Posted on by ridgetownrick
A few weeks ago I posted on social media that I was going to slow down in the number of articles I posted to my website. This was due to some ongoing health problems and because my schedule has become increasingly busy with talks, book signings and trying to work on Volume 2 of the Gardener’s Guide to Native Plants of the Southern Great Lakes Region. There just don’t seem to be enough hours in a day to get it ALL done. I was blown away by the level of support I received over my decision – your kindness has been extremely gratifying – even though it’s made my decision to cut back a tad more difficult.
I asked what it was you’d like to see me continue with, since I could no longer do everything, and one of the suggestions a long-time friend made was that I should write an article about (to paraphrase her) “how I designed my gardens to make them look so nice”. This is an attempt to answer that.
BOOK REVIEW
The Midwest Native Plant Primer: 225 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden
Posted on by ridgetownrick
By Alan Branhagen
- Publisher: Timber Press, July 2020
- Paperback: 256 pages
- ISBN-10: 160469992
- Dimensions: 8” X 9”
- Price: $35.74 (Amazon.ca); $19.42 (Amazon.com – currently a 22% discount)
At first glance, Branhagen’s The Midwest Native Plant Primer looks like a great book for native plant gardeners. It has almost 45 pages in the introduction alone that covers topics like Why Cultivate Native Plants, and goes into some detail on what defines the Midwest, looking at the various habitats (grasslands, forests). And it is chock full of beautiful photos.
There’s a whole chapter on selecting native plants – how to choose your plant and what to avoid (i.e. right plant, wrong place), with a short section on gardening for birds and one on gardening for butterflies. He talks about the aesthetics of native plants in the garden (form, colour, fragrance, etc.), then devotes a chapter to Designing with Native Plants.
With lots of beautiful photographs and some great information in the lengthy introductory section, at one time I would likely have found this book delightful. But maybe my collection of books on native plant gardening is just getting too big. I found that the actual plant information is quite limited so it is unclear who its target market is or even what the overall purpose is. This book might make a great introductory book to native plants, but there are several overview books in print already and this one doesn’t really offer anything new. What’s worse, it misses out in a number of areas to be of any great value to a native plant gardener.
Other Random Stuff
Check out the July Jigsaw Puzzle
