There was a time when the halls were decked with boughs of holly! Merry-makers strung their trees with popcorn and cranberries, and yule logs made of real wood warmed the hearth. As we try to reduce our use of plastic in daily life, it can be fun and satisfying to use natural materials in holiday decorations.
And, if you have a yard heavily planted with native plants, you’ll have plenty of ornamental material to choose from! The same plants that provide winter interest in our residential landscapes can add touches of natural beauty to holiday mantles, tables, vases, wreaths, and trees.
Three great native shrubs have been featured here with photos and information about their landscape use: American Holly, Winterberry, and Red Twig Dogwood (also called Red Osier Dogwood). All three also make great, long-lasting holiday decorations, and they don’t mind being pruned a bit for that purpose.
American Holly (Ilex opaca) is a classic!
No need to buy plastic berries if you have a Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) in your yard
Red Osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea) benefits from a little pruning for holiday decorations.
The bright red accents from these shrubs combine beautifully with evergreen foliage for holiday color schemes.
Red Osier Dogwood and Winterberry contrast with Christmas Fern, a native evergreen, at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA
Horticulturists have been developing beautiful cultivars of Red Osier Dogwood that look great both in the landscape and in winter decorations. A cultivar called ‘Arctic Fire’ is a compact version that stays about 3 to 5 feet tall and has brilliant red stems. As strange as it seems, there are even yellow versions of Red Osier Dogwood! Yellow and golden cultivars bring winter interest to the landscape and a surprising burst of color to holiday decorations
A golden cultivar
Indoor display at Longwood Gardens
Crabapples, Chokeberries, White Pine, and even Southern Magnolia are all American native plants that bring retro style to holiday arrangements. Try combining them with birch branches, dried flower stalks, twigs, pine cones, nuts, and other “found objects” from your yard. The cones of the White Pine don’t even need artificial snow — they come naturally “flocked” in their own pine sap!
Crab apples in December
Natural White Pine cones arranged on a native Alberta Spruce
Fireplace decoration by the Garden Club of Irvington for the Greenburg Nature Center combines native plants, a bird’s nest and wasp nest found on the grounds, and an invasive vine removed years ago from the forest
Charming ornaments for your tree or centerpieces also can be made from natural elements found in the garden.
But don’t scavenge in protected areas for these ornamental plants. Parks and wooded areas need all of these treasures to provide food and habitat for birds, insects, and other animals. It’s much better to plant your own property with native plants to add beauty year-round. And if you leave native perennials standing at the end of the season, the dried flower stalks not only provide food for winter birds but also make great additions to your seasonal decorations!
So, take a pass on the latest plastic holiday décor and, instead, look around your yard! If you have lots of native plants, and leave your flower beds untrimmed, all you need is a little creativity to deck your halls as in days of yore.
One last thing: do leave some of those beautiful berries for the birds. They love the natural decorations on the outside of your house!
Winterberry feast! Photo: Kristina Zagreda
THIS BLOG IS AUTHORED WEEKLY BY CATHY LUDDEN, CONSERVATIONIST AND NATIVE PLANT EDUCATOR; AND BOARD MEMBER, GREENBURGH NATURE CENTER. FOLLOW CATHY ON INSTAGRAM FOR MORE PHOTOS AND GARDENING TIPS@CATHYLUDDEN.
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Though Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) may be the most-planted tree in suburban America, it has been given a diminished role unworthy of this majestic native tree. Planted by the thousands along property lines by developers, builders, and landscapers, rows of crowded Arborvitae trees, standing shoulder to shoulder, have become the de-facto fences of suburbia.
A typical builder installation of Arborvitae
Arborvitae “fence” on a property line
Without room to spread their branches or reach their natural height, Arborvitae is often topped and heavily pruned to form hedges. They handle this assignment very well, but Arborvitae can do so much more!
If you’ve only seen Arborvitae used as a hedge, it may surprise you to learn that in its natural habitat, it can grow 50 to 60 feet tall and live for hundreds of years! In fact, the largest known specimen is over 100 feet tall and more than 40 feet wide at the crown. The oldest living Arborvitae is thought to have germinated from seed in 952 A.D., and is now 1,071 years old! Based on ring counts on dead trees, there are verified specimens of Arborvitae that lived to be over 1,800 years old.
An ancient stand of Arborvitae on cliffs overlooking Northern Lake Michigan Photo: C.J. Earle
Arborvitae is one of the common names for Thuja occidentalis and means “tree of life” in Latin. It was named by the French sea captain, Jacques Cartier, when he was exploring Canada in 1536. After months at sea, Cartier’s crew, including two young members of the Huron native tribe who had been sailing with them, were all suffering from scurvy. On the way up the St. Lawrence River, Cartier dropped the two young men at their home village. When he later returned, he was astonished to find the two Hurons fully recovered from all symptoms of scurvy while his French sailors were still suffering. He asked the Huron elders to teach him the cure, and they showed him how to make a medicine, a tea rich in Vitamin C, from the foliage of Thuja occidentalis. Cartier brought the life-saving plant back to France, making it the first North American tree introduced to Europe.
The native habitat of Thuja occidentalis is swamps, low woods, and forest edges from northern Canada south to New York and Connecticut and west to Michigan and Northern Indiana. It is an evergreen conifer, extremely cold hardy, and adapted to poor rocky soils all the way to the edge of the Canadian tundra. Sometimes called Northern White Cedar, Eastern White Cedar, or Swamp Cedar, Arborvitae is not a true cedar in the Cedrus family, none of which are native to North America. But the fragrance of its foliage and bark, and the usefulness of its wood, are similar.
Arborvitae often grows in very thin, poor soil in northern North America and is adapted to extreme cold. This forest of Arborvitae is at the brink of the Niagara Escarpment in Northern Wisconsin. Photo: C.J. Earle
The foliage of Arborvitae is flat and scale-like and has a spicy fragrance when crushed. Native peoples used it not only for medicine but also used the fragrant foliage as insect-repellant bedding. They stripped the tree’s shredding bark to make rope and twine, and they found many uses for the rot-resistant wood, including canoe frames and roofing shingles.
Thuja occidentalis has significant value to wildlife. It is a favorite food of white-tailed deer, as suburban homeowners often discover to their dismay. Twigs and foliage of Arborvitae constitute as much as 10 to 25% of the winter diet of deer, who will browse it as high as they can reach. In northern forests, the tree also provides highly nutritious food for snowshoe hares, porcupines, red squirrels, and beavers. Many native birds find nesting sites in Arborvitae and insects to feed their young. The seeds are the preferred source of food for Pine Siskins, birds indigenous to the Northeastern US.
It is sadly ironic that one of the most-planted trees in suburbia is disappearing in the wild. Thuja occidentalis is listed as Threatened in Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, and Maryland and Endangered in Indiana, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Development is the primary culprit as forests are cleared to make way for more suburban homes.
It is equally sad that the rows and rows of Arborvitae planted on suburban property lines are not nearly as valuable to wildlife as they should be. The most popular varieties of Arborvitae are cultivars or hybrids that offer little value to wildlife – other than deer. A cultivar called ‘Emerald Green’ Arborvitae was developed in the 1950s in Denmark, just in time for the rapid expansion of the US suburbs after WWII. It quickly became the ubiquitous hedge plant we see all around us. In a tight hedge, and with limited biological diversity due to clonal reproduction by nurseries, its value to insects and birds is limited.
Not Native
Another Arborvitae popular with builders is a hybrid called ‘Green Giant,’ which is a cross between a species indigenous to the Pacific Northwest and a Japanese species. As a hybrid between two non-natives, ‘Green Giant’ has very little value to insects or birds in this part of the country. If you can find the straight species of Thuja occidentalis (without a cultivar name), plant that. If not, ‘Emerald Green’ is a better choice than ‘Green Giant.’
Thuja occidentalis is an amazing tree. It deserves to be more than a fence! Given enough room to take its natural form, Arborvitae merits a starring role in suburban landscapes.
Growing the way nature intended, Arborvitae takes its rightful place with Oaks, White Pines, and Junipers in Northeastern landscapes
In our last blog post [Privacy Without “O-fence“], we urged homeowners to diversify their hedges and privacy screens by planting a mix of native trees and shrubs to increase habitat and biodiversity. Too much of any one plant becomes a mono-culture, limiting resources for wildlife. Unfortunately, that is what has happened to this magnificent native tree.
Don’t limit Arborvitae to this poor fate
Think of Arborvitae as an easy-care, long-lived, medium-sized, native, hardy evergreen that will enhance your landscape as part of a diverse planting of trees, shrubs, and perennials. You won’t be sorry!
Mighty Arborvitae
THIS BLOG IS AUTHORED WEEKLY BY CATHY LUDDEN, CONSERVATIONIST AND NATIVE PLANT EDUCATOR; AND BOARD MEMBER, GREENBURGH NATURE CENTER. FOLLOW CATHY ON INSTAGRAM FOR MORE PHOTOS AND GARDENING TIPS@CATHYLUDDEN.
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Suburban yards are places for families and friends to relax, perhaps enjoy a barbecue, and watch children and pets play safely. Privacy is important.
No wonder, then, that suburban homeowners often decide to plant a “privacy screen.” Hedges of trees or shrubs, planted as living “green fences,” are as common in suburbia as the lawns they typically surround.
But too often, these hedges are made with invasive plants that spread themselves into natural areas causing ecological harm. Top offenders include privet, Japanese barberry, forsythia, bamboo, and burning bush. All of these plants are recognized as invasive species and should be avoided.
Forsythia is not a good choice for a privacy screen
It spreads by underground runners into neighboring areas and is very difficult to remove
Bamboo is even worse
It really cannot be controlled!
Burning bush may look good for a minute
But it spreads by seed to wooded areas and replaces native plants
Japanese barberry, now banned in several states, spreads by seed into vacant lots, woods, and roadsides and actually increases the population of ticks carrying Lyme disease!
The good news is that the need for privacy does not require bringing any of these offensive plants onto your property. There are so many better choices!
In the Eastern US, the most popular privacy screen by far is Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis), also known as Northern White-cedar. Favored by builders and landscape maintenance companies, a row of inexpensive and readily available Arborvitae is often planted along the property line as soon as a new house is built.
Straight rows of Arborvitae are a common sight in suburbia
Though Arborvitae is a much better choice than any of the invasive plants mentioned above, it is not the only — or best — option. In areas populated by deer, Arborvitae is extremely vulnerable.
Deer “prune” Arborvitae into weird shapes
There is no privacy when the deer are done
Here are some alternatives – beautiful evergreen trees and shrubs, native to the Northeast, that make ideal privacy screens. And because they are native, they also offer value to native birds and pollinators!
American Holly (Ilex opaca) makes a dense, evergreen privacy screen and has the bonus of tiny flowers for pollinators in the spring and beautiful berries that add winter interest to the landscape.
American Holly may be pruned into a hedge
Berries on American Holly feed winter birds
Rhododendron is another good choice for privacy. When European settlers first explored the Eastern US, they struggled through massive stands of Rhododendron maximum that formed impenetrable evergreen thickets. Why not use that same feature now as an effective screen? Our native songbirds love to hide in a thicket!
Rhododendron in the wild
Rhododendron screening a fence
Inkberry (Ilex glauca), another native evergreen, grows quickly and has shiny, dark green leaves that form a dense screen. More winter-hardy than boxwood and growing taller, Inkberry is a great hedge plant.
Inkberry in a mixed border with Red Twig Dogwood and Switch Grass
The very best privacy screen, though, is not a row of one species of plant, but a forest! The Northeastern US was once predominantly forest, and many of the plants in those forests are still the best plants to grow here. In suburban yards, we can mimic the beauty, seclusion, and peaceful quiet of a diverse forest simply by planting more stuff! And a bigger variety of that stuff is inspired by our native forests!
Maybe it’s time to reconsider our approach to the “privacy screen.”
Hedges can be great, but they can also be visually boring and ecologically sterile. There is no law requiring homeowners to mark their property boundaries with a row of identical plants. Just because your property line forms a rectangle doesn’t mean your landscape has to be one. A diverse mix of plants – native trees, shrubs, grasses, and perennials – planted in masses makes a landscape interesting, lush, ecologically valuable, and very private.
Contrasting approaches – the mixed border of deciduous and evergreen trees on the right offers more interest, and more privacy, than the hedge on the left
A mix of White Pine, Arborvitae, Spruce, Juniper, and Rhododendron completely screens a house from the road
If you already have a hedge or a fence along the property line, consider planting inside it using a mix of native trees and shrubs that change with the seasons. Start with the corners.
Trained landscape designers tend to avoid square corners and straight lines in their designed plantings. You can do the same thing. Map out curved beds that soften the corners and bring more plants further into your yard. Plant taller shrubs at the back, and choose flowering shrubs and perennials to plant in the foreground where you can enjoy them.
Fences along two neighboring properties meet to form a hard corner that is softened, and completely screened, by a curved planting of mixed trees, shrubs, and perennials
So, consider creating a privacy screen that looks more like a forest than a fence. By planting more plants, and a bigger variety of plants in more of your yard, you will have more privacy, more seasonal interest, less lawn to tend, and more habitat for birds, butterflies, and fireflies.
How’s that for a win-win-win-win?!
THIS BLOG IS AUTHORED WEEKLY BY CATHY LUDDEN, CONSERVATIONIST AND NATIVE PLANT EDUCATOR; AND BOARD MEMBER, GREENBURGH NATURE CENTER. FOLLOW CATHY ON INSTAGRAM FOR MORE PHOTOS AND GARDENING TIPS@CATHYLUDDEN.
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The Northeastern United States is famous for fall foliage. “Leaf peepers” come from all over the world to see our native plants in their dramatic fall colors.
Northeastern landscape in autumn
A walk in the woods in fall
Why, then, should a walk around suburban neighborhoods, in the same region during the same season, be so disappointing? Where are the colors?
The plants that thrill “leaf peepers” grew in abundance before the suburbs were developed, and they would still thrive here – if only they were planted! It seems that every suburban yard uses the same non-native “foundation plants” — boxwood, pachysandra, ivy, and hedges of yew or privet or even bamboo! – all completely devoid of our famous fall colors!
C’mon people! We can do so much better than this! Why not plant our yards with the same trees, shrubs, and perennials that make this region a tourist attraction in the fall? Let’s add some color, life, and seasonal interest beyond pumpkins! There are so many great choices with our incredible abundance of Northeastern native plants.
Red maple (Acer rubrum) Photo: Michael Martini
Pin Oak (Quercus palustris)
The undisputed rock-stars of fall color are our native Maples, and Oak trees are a close second. If you have a lawn, you probably have room for a Maple or a native Oak. Oaks have enormous value for wildlife — and for homeowners! [See this blog post] Both Maples and Oaks are beautiful year-round, but autumn is their glory season.
Our native flowering trees are also brilliant in the fall. Nothing beats the American Dogwood (Cornus florida) with its intense maroon foliage and vivid scarlet berries. Crabapples (Malus spp.) also produce colorful fruit, and American Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) starts blooming in October!
American Dogwood
Crabapple
American Witch Hazel
The Northeast is also blessed with native shrubs that produce kaleidoscopic colors in the fall. While evergreen foundation shrubs are useful, why not add some of the flowering and fruiting native shrubs that bring color and interest in both spring and fall? Here are some easy choices to add to your yard. All of the shrubs pictured below are locally available, easy to grow, valuable to wildlife, have beautiful flowers, and are spectacular in the fall.
Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia)
Possumhaw Viburum (Viburnum nudum) pictured with American Witch Hazel
Low Bush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium)
Red Chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia)
American Cranberrybush (Viburnum trilobum)
Winterberry (Ilex verticillata)
And don’t forget fall flowers and grasses in gorgeous colors!
Not only are these plants beautiful, they are incredibly valuable to the ecosystem of the Northeastern US. So many suburban landscapes use non-native plants that offer nothing to birds, butterflies, bees and other insects, and many are destructively invasive as well. If your only fall color is coming from burning bush or Japanese maple, you may want to consider native alternatives for those reasons. Privet, bamboo, ivy, vinca, and pachysandra are all known to be invasive plants and can be replaced easily with native plants that are beautiful in the fall, and year-round.
And wouldn’t you enjoy an autumn view like this?
Willow leaf oak (Quercus phellos), American dogwood, and Pin Oaks
And this?
Oaks, Inkberry (Ilex glabra), Blue Star (Amsonia tabernaemontana and A. hubrichtii), High Bush Blueberry(Vaccinium corymbosum), Common juniper, and Possumhaw Viburnum
The fall glory of native plants lies within your reach!
THIS BLOG IS AUTHORED WEEKLY BY CATHY LUDDEN, CONSERVATIONIST AND NATIVE PLANT EDUCATOR; AND BOARD MEMBER, GREENBURGH NATURE CENTER. FOLLOW CATHY ON INSTAGRAM FOR MORE PHOTOS AND GARDENING TIPS@CATHYLUDDEN.
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Can a garden plant connect us to a past so unimaginably distant that Earth itself was unrecognizable?
If we interrupt our routines, just for a moment, we can consider a plant that links us to an ancient time. Osmunda claytoniana, commonly known as “Interrupted Fern,” looks perfectly at home in a modern garden, yet it is essentially the same plant it was over 200 million years ago! Even before the first T-rex appeared, Interrupted Fern inhabited lush woodlands on proto-continents that later splintered, collided, and drifted apart.
A fossil found in Antarctica tells the story. In the late Triassic period (252-201 million years ago), the land mass that is now Antarctica had a temperate climate. There, growing near a stream in a shady forest, an Interrupted Fern became encased in sediment and then fossilized. The fossil reveals a plant that is virtually indistinguishable from Interrupted Ferns growing in gardens and forests in the Northeastern US today! Most plant and animal species found on Earth in the Triassic became extinct millions of years ago. Of those that survived, most have undergone so many mutations and evolutionary changes that they are virtually unrecognizable. But Interrupted Fern has continued – essentially without interruption!
Osmunda claytoniana is called “Interrupted Fern” because of its unusual and readily-identifiable structure. While most ferns carry their spores on separate stems or on the undersides of leaves, Interrupted Fern sends up fertile spore-bearing fronds from the center of the plant with feather-like clusters of “sporangia” in mid-stem. As the spore clusters ripen and drop away, the mid-section of the frond is “interrupted” leaving bare space between the leaves.
Spore-producing structures interrupt the leaves on fertile fronds
Close-up of spore-bearing sections
As spores mature, they dry up and drop away
The fertile fronds are left “interrupted” between leafy sections
Interrupted Fern is a great landscape plant. It emerges in early spring and remains fresh and upright throughout the summer, making an architectural statement in the garden. The fronds typically reach about 3 feet in height, and form an attractive vase shape. The fern expands its territory from the rhizome slowly, over a decade or so, eventually forming a clump. Once established, a clump of Interrupted Fern can be very long-lived. Thriving examples have been found in gardens abandoned for over fifty years. A colony of a naturally-occurring hybrid between Interrupted Fern and its close relative, Royal Fern, in Virginia is thought to be about 1,100 years old.
A 30-year-old clump of Interrupted Ferns looks great under mature trees along a driveway in suburban New York
Though it once lived in Antarctica, Interrupted Fern is found today only in Eastern and Central US and Canada. It does best in rich, moderately damp acid soil in full to part shade, but it grows taller (4-5 feet!) with more sun. Hardy in Zones 3 to 7, it is not palatable to deer – or dinosaurs, apparently. It provides cover to small birds and mammals, and makes an excellent underplanting for trees, especially at the edges of wooded areas where leaves are allowed to remain in place, enriching the soil.
Osmunda emerging in spring
Interrupted Fern dies back to the ground in late fall, leaving a mounded crown at the surface of the soil and a network of fine roots below. The rhizome can be dug for transplanting with a sharp spade in early spring by cutting the roots 4 to 6 inches from the crown and settling the crown in the new spot at the same height, spreading the roots out under a light layer of soil. Leaf mulch or compost are much better than bark mulch for keeping the soil moist and cool. In spring, the fronds emerge covered with long, fuzzy hairs and unfurl over a week or so. Once established in a suitable spot, Interrupted Fern really needs nothing more from humans!
From dinosaurs to automobiles, a living fossil in the modern world
As we worry about climate change, destruction of habitat, and the alarming loss of plant and animal species in what scientists are calling the “Sixth Great Extinction,” there is some comfort in observing this lovely plant that has seen more than one apocalypse and managed to survive unchanged. This ancient fern may just survive it all.
THIS BLOG IS AUTHORED WEEKLY BY CATHY LUDDEN, CONSERVATIONIST AND NATIVE PLANT EDUCATOR; AND BOARD MEMBER, GREENBURGH NATURE CENTER. FOLLOW CATHY ON INSTAGRAM FOR MORE PHOTOS AND GARDENING TIPS@CATHYLUDDEN.
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