Worn Out Gardners

After two twelve hour days, we are tired but feeling accomplished. Hence, the delay of Thursday substack by twelve hours. The garden we’re making is coming along beautifully but on days in between, I still have farm work and springtime garden presentations to get done. This essay starts with a presentation from this past weekend, then merges into a video of garden work.

A few gasps rose from the audience when I, the speaker, said, "Even when I'm making a naturalistic meadow, I don't restrict myself to only native plants."

In today's politicized planting climate, that statement's almost heresy. If you're not all-American native all the way, you might as well be admitting to dancing naked a pagan May Day ceremony.

I was speaking at a garden festival to a sea of eager faces who'd come to learn about meadow-making. My current project flashed on the screen behind me—a video showing our nearly-native meadow under dark coastal clouds, lightning sizzled over the black water river and marsh — our project borders.

One young woman from the local native plant society raised her hand. For a moment, my heart raced—what would she ask? I'd met her before and thought she was a native-purest, unlike me, but I also suspected she might understand my approach. She asked,

"When you're working near a natural area like the marsh," she asked, "do you consider whether your non-native plants will seed in or move into the marsh?"

Whew. I'm pretty sure she set me up. We'd spoken enough to know we shared some basic conservation values. She’d set me up to make a critical point I’d neglected.

"I grew up playing with fiddler crabs," I said simply. "I love those guys and would do nothing to endanger them." I went on to explain that every single plant in this meadow was carefully researched. Many of the so-called "non-natives" are actually Gulf Coast, Florida or Texas natives—just not native to our particular stretch of coastline.

Check out this short video of how things are coming along. While you watch, remember that many plants commonly sold as "native" aren't truly native to our specific ecosystem but come from nearby regions. In our meadow, these botanical cousins add floral sparks without threatening the salt marsh habitat.

Look for the popular Gaura lindheimeri from the Gulf Coast (now reclassified as Oenothera), Yellow tickseed, a Texas native and Gaillardia, considered a Mexican native—both thriving alongside their local counterparts.

You might have seen photos of our marsh-side meadow before, especially if you were in the presentation I did last Saturday, but stick around for the end of this video. Our tiniest critics have delivered their verdict in the most unexpected way.