GONE NATIVE

– By Peter Jovanovich –

One of the challenges of planting a wild flower garden is that things don't always go according to plan. “It's often one step forward, two steps back,” says Chris Murray, a member of The Little Garden Club of Rye that created the wildflower garden at the Rye Nature Center almost 20 years ago. “Some years,” says Murray, “everything comes up as you might expect; others, the bunnies and deer eat some of your hard work. It's an adventure.”

Over the last three years, the club, under the design leadership of Kathy Barnard, has renovated the Native Plant Garden at the Nature Center. Located next to the parking lot as you walk towards the Education Building, the expanded garden now displays native trees and shrubs in addition to wildflowers. When you visit the garden in May, you will see an array of such species native to North America as bloodroot, columbine, celandine poppy, Solomon's seal, bleeding heart, Virginia bluebells and tiarella. Just the names themselves should attract your interest.

The inherent struggle in native plant gardening, borne by the members of the Little Garden Club, is dealing with the effects of uncontrollable nature. For example, a century ago gardeners on the former estate planted wisteria, English ivy, Norway maples and goutweed. More recently, other invasive species such as garlic mustard and lesser celandine have crept into the Nature Center. It takes a great deal of work to keep these plants out of the garden. And then, of course, deer, rabbits and even wild turkeys take their toll on the plants and shrubs.

Last year, an ultrasonic deer deterrent system was installed, free-of-charge by a fence company, as a demonstration project. The theory was that the intermittent ultra-sonic beeps the system emits would deter the deer from entering the garden and eating the holly, viburnum, mountain laurel, rhododendron and sweet pepper bush that were recently planted.

For those who have an interest in learning more about native plants and wildflower gardening, stop by and see the native plant garden at the Rye Nature Center. It blooms, not only in the spring but throughout the summer and well into fall when things such as the diminutive and endangered fragrant lady's-tresses (native orchid) are in bloom.