Front-Yard Conversations

The Time is Ripe for Front-Yard Conversations

Photo by Carol Davit.

Above: James and Jan Trager’s Gray Summit, Mo., native garden was certified through the St. Louis Audubon’s Bring Conservation Home program.

Left and Below: Signs like these for your garden indicate to the neighborhood that you support native gardening.

If there ever was a silver lining to the current health crisis, it is that people are spending more time outdoors and yearning to connect with other people. For instance, in the past week, while strolling along a sidewalk, I struck up conversations with two people who were gardening in their front yards. I was drawn in by their attractive gardens, and then thrilled to have a face-to-face chat over the split-rail fence, over the lowclipped hedge. These days it is so easy to break the ice. People are yearning for human connections. I simply said, “Your roses smell so nice,” and “Are those ‘Happy Returns’ daylilies?” and before I knew it, a few minutes of blissful chit-chat had consumed my day, and these conversations became the highlight of my week. What a treat from the depressing new normal of visiting with coworkers, friends and family on a computer screen!

In addition to my exchanges being pleasant, they also were

SCOTT WOODBURY Horticulturist

Horticulturist Scott Woodbury is the Curator of the Whitmore Wildflower Garden at Shaw Nature Reserve in Gray Summit, MO, where he has worked with native plant propagation, design, and education for 28 years, and which is supported by the Missouri Dept. of Conservation. He also is an advisor to the Missouri Prairie Foundation’s Grow Native! program.

thought provoking. What messages (and potential messages) do we send to our neighbors through the front yard garden? The scent of the roses and lovely masses of lemonyellow daylilies (both non-native plants) briefly interrupted my mundane routine. I instantly sensed beauty with my nose and eyes, and then had the unique opportunity to follow up with a question or two. Without the gardener standing there, I would have kept walking and the smells and sights would have quickly evaporated from my memory. But with the gardener’s words, came greater understanding. I found that roses bloom heavily with hard work and a lot of fertilizer and water, and that ‘Happy Returns’ daylily is a nicer color yellow than ‘Stella de oro’ and available at Lowes.

And that was it. The message was about flower color and quantity of bloom. OK, that’s fine. That got my attention, for a brief moment. Please don’t get me wrong: I am so grateful for the in-person conversations I have these days, especially with fellow gardeners. But there is so much more that can come from a front yard conversation about plants, and there should be.

Native plants are so much more than just beautiful flowers. They feed nectar and pollen to countless bee species, whose populations world-wide are in decline. In return, bees pollinate plants so they can produce fruits like blueberry and watermelon, and seeds eaten by wild birds (Texas green eyes produce seeds all summer for gold finches).

Native plants feed moth and butterfly caterpillars with lifesupporting leaf tissue. That’s why there are holes in milkweed and pawpaw leaves. And those caterpillars feed baby birds, whose populations are also in steep decline.

White oak tree bark provides a home for bats and overwintering butterflies. Its acorns feed squirrels, chipmunks, and red-headed woodpeckers all winter long. And Missouri white oak wood used in barrels flavors the wine and whiskey we love to consume.

Native plants are so rich, they have depth, and are brimming with connections to nature, cuisine, history, and folklore. In the book Ozark Magic and Folklore (1947), Vance Randolph writes that many old people think that ironwood trees were planted by the Devil’s agents and that sassafras trees somehow sprout from grub worms. He probably wasn’t aware that ironwood is the best species for tree climbing (for safety, mulch thickly below the tree). Also, Randolph writes that pawpaw is well known to be connected with witch-craft and even zebra swallowtail butterflies (who lay their eggs only on pawpaw) are thought of as “strange” because it is so often seen fluttering around pawpaw trees. If this won’t start (or stop) a front-yard conversation, then nothin’ will. Randolph’s books are chock-full of Ozark stories about plants and people that will either keep your neighbors hanging on your every word, or send them running for the hills. Clearly, I’ve had extra time on my hands and need some face time, I mean real face time. But if you don’t take kindly to chatting with passers-bye, but still see the value in messaging, there are a number of garden signs that may be of interest. St. Louis Wild Ones offers a sign that says “This garden is in harmony with Nature.” St. Louis Audubon’s backyard certification program, Bring Conservation Home, provides a sign that says “This landscape provides outstanding wildlife habitat value.” Grow Native!, a program of the Missouri Prairie Foundation, has five different signs, one of which states “These native plants provide food sources for beneficial insects and support songbirds and other cherished wildlife.”

If your goal is to support nature, and create memories that last, consider adding native plants and perhaps a sign that tells the neighborhood that you support native gardening. Now, more than ever, nature needs us to step up and do our part. Happy Gardening ya’ll.

Find suppliers of native plants and native plant services at www. grownative.org, Resource Guide. Grow Native! garden signs are available in the Gift Shop at grownative.org.

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Summer Flowering Trees Worth A Closer Look

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Family frolic hedge apple days Sep. 26 & 27 | 12–4 p.m.

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Search for, collect, and play with the unique seeds and seed pods from Missouri’s native plants.