Going Native at the National Garden

By Kathy McCleary, special to HGTV.com
PHOTO

In the National Garden's regional gardens, shrubs like sweet azalea (Rhododendron arborescens) will show how a beautiful garden is usually a little easier to achieve when natives are included.
Maybe in your garden it was a rose, a fragrant old-fashioned bloomer that seemed irresistible at the time. Or maybe it was something simpler--a delicate blue salvia, or dramatic pink foxglove. For Holly Shimizu, director of the soon-to-be-born U.S. National Garden, it was a dianthus, a fragrant white D. caryophyllus that simply would not grow in her northern Virginia garden.

"I love dianthus but they really do better in New England," she says. "Rock garden plants basically just melt here because it's too humid and the night temperatures are too hot."

PHOTO

Cultivars like 'Fireworks' give goldenrod a whole new panache for this common native. 'Fireworks' is one of dozens of new cultivars that will be on display at the National Garden.
PHOTO

Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) cultivars at the National Garden will include 'Stokes Pink', 'September Dog', 'Purple Glory' and 'Junior Miss'. Dogwood breeders in many locations are working hard to develop strains that are resistant to one or more of the dogwood's many pests.
It's precisely because every gardener has known the experience of trying to grow something that just wouldn't thrive--or even survive--that a major focus of the new National Garden will be on native species. The centerpiece of the Garden (opening in Washington, D.C., in spring of 2006) will be a regional garden filled with a huge variety of flowers, trees, shrubs, grasses and herbs. (A preliminary plant list names 139 different cultivars of shrubs alone.) But the plants will all be natives of the mid-Atlantic region, from dwarf pawpaw (Asimina parviflora) to ironwood trees (Ostrya virginiana) to longflower tobacco (Nicotiana longiflora).

Visitors will get "an astounding appreciation for the beauty of mid-Atlantic natives in a garden setting," says Shimizu. That includes newer cultivars of flowering dogwood (Cornus florida 'Purple Glory', 'September Dog', and 'Stokes Pink'), sweet azalea (Rhododendron arborescens), and even pawpaw trees, which grow along the Potomac River in DC and northern Virginia and Maryland. "I have one in my garden at home and it's the most beautiful tree in the garden," Shimizu says. In autumn the pawpaw's large leaves turn "the most rich golden yellow you've ever seen."

Which sounds delightful, to be sure, but what's in it for those of us from, say, the Pacific Northwest, or the far reaches of southern Texas? "In a bigger context, what visitors should take home is something we all should be sensitive to as gardeners: the need to focus on the kind of weather and growing conditions we have and what plants are going to be happy growing there," says Shimizu. In other words when it comes to choosing plants it's a Crosby, Stills and Nash kind of thing: If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

Shimizu, who's been involved with the National Garden since 1988, says she sees more and more gardeners returning to "plants that grow well for us." In the early stages of planning the garden, "everyone wanted sections devoted to every state, so members of Congress could have their state flowers here," Shimizu says. "But that wasn't realistic." Arizona's saguaro cactus blossom (Carnegiea gigantea), for example, would rot in DC's rain; few camellias (Alabama) would thrive in DC's summer heat.

Instead, visitors will find a rose garden (the national flower) featuring varieties that do well in the mid-Atlantic region, such as 'Nearly Wild', a floribunda hybrid and 'Heritage', a fragrant light pink rose "that we don't have to spray," Shimizu says.
"We're committed to good gardening practices including gardening more organically, and encouraging creatures and pollinators. When we get aphids on the roses we'll spray them with a hard cold spray of water, and when we get Japanese beetles we'll hand squish them."

She hopes you'll be inspired by the National Garden to do the same and to research natives that grow well in your area. To plan your own regional garden, Shimizu offers these tips:

  • Research plants that thrive on neglect. "Go to cemeteries or abandoned home sites where nobody takes care of the plants and see what's growing." If a species is hardy enough to grow without a gardener's attention, imagine what it will do under your TLC in your garden (watch out for invasives, though, of course).
  • Contact your regional native-plant society to find out about the natives that do well in your area.
  • Visit public gardens and local nurseries. Both places are a great resource for gathering ideas. "Get an idea of what you like and don't like before you start buying," Shimizu says.
    • Details on the National Garden

    The garden as planned includes four phases. Phase 1, the basic garden, includes the rose garden, a butterfly garden, a lawn terrace and several pergolas. Phase 2, the regional garden, encompasses an amphitheater that will serve as an outdoor classroom, an adventure trail, a stream and a rich diversity of mid-Atlantic plants. Construction is currently underway and both are scheduled to open in spring, 2006. Phase 3 is the First Ladies Water Garden, which is also planned for spring 2006. The final phase, for which funding remains incomplete, is a $7.6 million environmental learning center. All the funding for the garden comes from private sector donations, says Stephen Ward, executive director with the national fund for the U.S. Botanic Garden. (Corporate sponsors include HGTV, Lowe's Home Improvement, the Scott's Company, the Heinz Family Foundation and Deere & Company.)

    The Garden is situated on a "fabulous site," Ward says, on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, about a quarter mile from the Capitol building itself. It's directly across the street from the National Mall, and across 4th St. from the new Museum of the American Indian.

    --After gardening for 13 years in the Pacific Northwest, Kathy McCleary is learning how to garden in the hot, humid climate of Falls Church, Virginia. A regular contributor to HGTV Ideas, she has also written for The New York Times and Good Housekeeping.