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Glenda
Clayton was walking her dog through the woods near Parry Sound this
spring when she came upon a patch of periwinkle. In a few weeks,
she knew, the brown undergrowth of early spring would be replaced
with a sea of deep green leaves and brilliant blue flowers, a lush
carpet some half acre in extent. The thought did not make her smile. |
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The problem
is that periwinkle belongs in Europe. The moist woods and stream
banks of Muskoka and parry Sound should be home to wild ginger,
trout lilies and trilliums. These native plants are integrated into
an environment of incredible complexity that has evolved over thousands
of years. As only a single part of this chain, the seeds of all
three of these plants have a fleshy attachment called an elaiosome
that ants eat. The ants drag the seeds from the mother plant back
to their nest! eating the elaiosome and leaving the seeds to germinate
in a rich compost of ant litter. The spiders that eat the ants,
the birds that eat the spiders, the owls that eat the other birds
... are all linked back to the wild ginger and the trilliums. Periwinkle
breaks the chain. |
Most,
though, have not. Resistant to pests, useless as food for insects
or birds, they march unimpeded through the region. The worst offenders
form impenetrable monocultures, crowding out native species. There
are islands in Georgian Bay where hardly anything grows except sedum.
Japanese knotweed, according to one garden writer, is "about
as stoppable as a major mudslide." Phragmites, or common reed,
creates thick stands that grow thicker each year, as the dead leaves
and stalks fall to the ground and act as a self-protecting mulch.
"As we change the landscape, the native species have less and less space in which to carry out their lifecycles," said Clayton. "There are some areas of parry Sound- Muskoka that are definitely well off, as far as the impact of people and species. But where there are people, there are definitely things that move in with us." Some of the invaders arrive as hitch hikers. Phragmites has been a problem in southern Ontario for a couple of decades and is now starting to show up in parts of Muskoka. "It's at the southern end of the Bay, there are pockets of it around Nobel, pockets all along Highway 400, and I'm pretty sure there are pockets of it on Highway 11," said Clayton. "We think it might be coming in on construction equipment. Certainly we tend to see it where there has been construction recently, so you've got to wonder if it's coming in caught in the tracks of bulldozers." |
Many
other invaders, though, are here because we've invited them. Chives,
hen and chicks, stonecrop, hollyhock, spearmint, catnip, garden phlox,
sweet William - the list of garden plants that have gone wild is seemingly
endless. Robert Allen has seen many of them, and admits to having planted a few- The founder of Northway Gardens, Allen began landscaping in Muskoka more than 30 years ago, "mulching geraniums and laying sod," he said with a laugh. Around 20 years ago he began to drop some plants from his repertoire; these days he's one of the region's most zealous advocates of native plants. "In woodlands I began using understorey and semi-shade plants in the landscape," he said. He liked the way they looked, particularly in winter when many retained their shape and held on to their fruit. At first it was mostly a design thing." Gradually, he came to realize that the native trees and shrubs he was planting had a host of other benefits. They were low maintenance, they tended to attract more wildlife, and they didn't spread into the woods and crowd out other plants. Twenty years ago, Allen was a bit of a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Nobody wanted to use native plants, and even getting plant stock was a challenge. |
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| He
tried to propagate native plants himself, but gave up: with a background
in ornamental horticulture, he was a landscaper, rot a nurseryman."I
was driving myself crazy, running around cutting lawns in order to
pay to learn how to do it. I said 'this is a whole other trade.'" After a while, though, the plants that Allen and others were requesting began to show up in the nurseries."I find that tends to be the case in most things, the nursery trade in five to eight years behind the landscape architects," he said. These days it's not just the landscaping professionals who are using native plants: home gardeners have also embraced the trend in a big way. When Allen gave a talk in Parry Sound on the subject, he thought it might attract 15 people; 40 showed up, and most of them were already extremely knowledgeable. |
Allen
credits the work of conservation groups like the Muskoka Watershed
Council and the Muskoka Heritage Foundation for helping to drive awareness.
"Part of their strategy was to encourage people to retain buffers
with native plants, in order to preserve the shoreline, combat erosion,
all sorts of things." He said. As homeowners began to introduce native plants - or allow existing ones to grow - the began to experience some of the same benefits Allen had noticed. "A lot of native shrubs are very interesting in winter," he said. "They've got berries on them, the birds come, they're low maintenance." Changes in landscaping fashion have also played a role. The controlled, formal gardens of the late 20th century have given way to a wilder, less structured look that many native species are suited to. |
Allen
still uses non-native plants, but in a more careful and controlled
fashion. Even periwinkle has a place in his repertoire: he likes to
plant a strip of it between the drip line and the walkway of the cottage,
where it can be controlled. But in a woodland setting? Not a chance. Allen also expects to see increasing numbers of native species showing up in nurseries."There's a lot of stuff growing here that's not yet been cultivated and used, which really surprises me. A lot of great shade plants," he said. "Give it three to five years and we'll start to see that in the nurseries." |
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1493
Windermere Road
R. R. #2, Utterson, Ontario P0B 1M0 |
Phone:
705-769-3052 Fax: 705-769-2176 info@northwaygardeners.com |