H O M E G A R D E N E S S AY
the new natural
In yards around the country, there’s a gardening movement that aims to work with nature instead of against it.
IT USED TO BE SIMPLE. To plant a
“natural” garden, you banished strict geometry from the design and stuck to native plants. Today, though, the term is taking on a new meaning with a relaxed style that’s right at home in the typically more cultivated areas of the landscape (for example, the front yard). Four ecologically minded designers in particular are helping define the naturalistic garden in achievable ways for home gardeners. Larry Weaner, a Pennsylvaniabased landscape architect with whom I coauthored the book Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change, earned his reputation creating meadow and woodland plantings, but he understands the desire of many of his clients for more domesticated
60 BHG | September 2016
plantings, particularly in the areas immediately around their houses. Native plants, especially newer cultivated types (“nativars”), function well in such settings while still providing benefits to wildlife and pollinators. Why opt for Asian rhododendrons, Weaner says, when you can choose native azaleas that bloom from April to September and provide colorful fall foliage, too? This new movement is still in the process of finding an ideological balance. Formerly, natural gardeners insisted on the sole use of only unhybridized native species. To include anything else was to doubt the gardener’s credibility as an environmentalist. But in a world where humanity’s fingerprints are almost everywhere, does it make sense to return
BY THOMAS CHRISTOPHER PHOTOS THOMAS R AINER
NATURAL BUT NOT STRICTLY NATIVE Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima), Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’, ‘Caradonna’ salvia, and ‘Purple Sensation’ allium mingle in the streetside border of Thomas Rainer’s Washington, D.C., home. (Caution: Nassella can be aggressive in some areas. Search invasivespeciesinfo.gov for your region.)
