This is a confessional. An apologia from a repentant and (mostly) reformed gardener.
Nearly every spring and summer when in Atlanta and the north Georgia mountains, I spent more money than I would like to admit purchasing 15 and 30-gallon containers of shrubs, trees, and perennial flowering plants. There were the countless flats of annuals, the pre-emergent herbicides and fertilizers we put on the lawn, the Round-Up that we sprayed on the terrace and walks to rid ourselves of what were considered unsightly weeds. The milkweed and volunteer plants that popped up near the creek were mowed down or weed whacked, and a special tool was used to plunk out clumps of yellow-blooming dandelion. Then it all happened again the next year, and the next: the buying and planting and eradicating.
During those decades when I wasn’t digging in the earth, I was reading books on landscape design by Gertrude Jekyll, Penelope Hobhouse, and Capability Brown. I learned what a ha-ha was and a rill. I envisioned outdoor “rooms” with different themes and character, always making sure that there was an esthetic combination of textures and heights in the perennial borders and that the different herbs had the appropriate amount of sun, the right pH, and sufficient moisture. As my parents had always done, I composted religiously, making the “black gold” described in Crockett’s Victory Garden.
But I was, as the author Sara Stein wrote in Noah’s Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Back Yards, an “illiterate gardener.” I had the shelves of gardening books, the tools and equipment, the muddied boots and the soil under my fingernails to prove that I spent lots of time outdoors digging around. But I lived in Georgia, after all, not on a grand estate in Great Britain where long vistas and groves, walled and boxed gardens, and topiaries were the norm. Mine wasn’t even a cottage garden with rosemary and thyme planted among a riot of foxglove, iris, and blooming and trailing vines. It was a yard with way too much grass, too orderly and kempt and manicured.
The baptism by herbicide came first. It was a sad, embarrassing recognition to learn what those chemicals we had been spraying on the grass every year were doing not only to the pollinators in our yard but to the greater environment. Although I was more than thirty years late reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, I did finally devour it and felt like I had sinned against nature.
Michael Pollen’s writings made me realize that we easily could have let some of the fallen pine trees at the back of the property stay leaning and thus provided habitat for birds and mammals. He and other authors taught me that all those years when I was studiously reading instructions for how and when to plant and figuring out what species were best for our planting zone, I should have spent time learning what was native to our region. If I had, I would have learned that not all plants that thrive in a region were actually meant for that region.
Not long after moving to St. Simons Island permanently in 2015, I heard Susan Shipman, the chair of the Land Trust’s board of directors and a devoted conservationist, mention how lantana was such an invasive species. Lantana?! I was too embarrassed to admit that I had bought that hardy, blooming plant by the boatload. And sure enough, as she always is, Susan was right. The second year after planting on the island, Lantana strigocamara had taken over two flower beds, its roots deep and some of its stems nearly as thick and hard as the handle of a trowel. I had thought I was planting an innocent little annual, when instead I had paid good money for what had become a shrub and was far more difficult to get rid of than those dandelions I had murdered.
After I joined the Land Trust staff, “invasives,” “exotics,” and “natives” finally became part of my vocabulary. The wonderful environmentalists on our staff and board, and the organizations that we partner with, like Coastal Wildscapes and the Department of Natural Resources, have taught me that land conservation often includes restoration. That means removing invasive and exotic species that were never meant to grow in Coastal Georgia. Plants like water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), the floating perennial that can form thick mats and double in size in less than a week, restricting light and air needed by other aquatic plants.
The ubiquitous lantana, which can grow as high as six feet tall, was often introduced by homeowners on land we now protect. Unfortunately, it can be a host plant for pests and is poisonous to humans and animals. It also often requires large crews of volunteers and staff to remove it from Land Trust properties before it chokes out plants that are indigenous to the area.
Camphor (Cinnamomum camphora) and chinaberry trees (Melia azedarach) were both introduced to the region from Asia and are sold as ornamentals. But both are exceptionally fast growers, with the camphor sometimes reaching heights of 100 feet and outcompeting native trees. Both have berries and seeds that are easily distributed by birds. And leaves from the deciduous chinaberry raise the soil pH, completely changing the natural habitat of native plants.
Shade trees that are native to the area and that can be found on Land Trust properties include the loblolly bay, Southern magnolia, red cedar, longleaf pine, pond pine, and cabbage palm. The live oak, for which the island is so famous, is not only native, but is also a keystone plant of maritime forests and helps prevent the spread of fires. The species is so important to the region that over the past six years the Land Trust has partnered with national and local colleges and universities on a maritime forest restoration project, the first and only of its kind in the world. One of the most majestic examples of a live oak is “John’s Oak” that can be found at the John Gilbert Nature Trail on Frederica Road. And another beautiful example of a native tree along this same trail is the red cedar. Windswept and living near the marsh, its limbs and bark make the tree look like a piece of art.
Beautyberry and redbuds are two native understory trees that are great food sources for migratory birds and are important pollinators. Goldenrod is another excellent pollinator that can be found on Land Trust properties. It is striking in the fall, and can be easily planted in residential landscapes. Other natives that I might have ripped from the ground years ago include muscadine vines, sparkleberry, scarlet sage, spurge-nettle, and even the common pokeweed. My all-time favorite natives are trumpet vine (which our daughter carried in her handpicked wedding bouquet) and muhly grass with its wispy, pinkish-purple strands waving in the wind.
While I am repentant of my past habits, I am still in the process of what Sara Stein describes as “unbecoming a gardener.” There is still turf in my yard at home and at the office. But I am changing my ways as quickly as I can and moving toward, I hope, becoming a dedicated environmentalist who also likes to play in the dirt. We can restore our ecology, I believe – all of us – one back yard at a time.
If you’re interested in native plants, be sure to attend Coastal Wildscapes’ Spring Native Plant Sale on April 9, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Ashantilly Center in Darien. For a full listing of both natives and invasives, visit coastalwildscapes.org/Plant-Lists. To learn more about the St. Simons Land Trust, call 912.638.9109, drop by our offices at 1810 Frederica Rd., or visit sslt.org.
