CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When I started my first perennial garden, I was dismayed to learn the gardening maxim, “the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap,” meaning that perennial plants need about three growing seasons to become established and fill in a garden bed.
Perennial growth is a little like building a house, where first the basement is excavated, then the foundation is built, and finally the house is framed. So it is with perennials: While the plants are “sleeping” and “creeping” aboveground, the roots are growing deep underground to provide the foundation for the plant growth.
An example of a Northeast Ohio native garden now “leaping” into its third season of growth is at the Hawken Mastery School in University Circle. The garden was installed in the summer of 2022 under the direction of Hawken teachers Nick Fletcher and Claudia Tausz, who run a workshop-style class at Hawken Mastery with the bold title “Changing the World in 15 Days.” In the hands-on class, students identify and remove invasive plant species on campus and help plant and maintain the native garden to enhance the local ecosystem.
Fletcher, who teaches Latin at the Hawken Upper School, says of the garden installation, “Of course we are not professional designers or gardeners, so we used our instincts and info we could find… We basically bought and planted three of everything and planted them in clumps.” Their dedication and patience has paid off with an eye-catching garden that attracts pollinators and human visitors alike.
Native shrubs include fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica), red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea), and ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius), which are now “huge,” according to Fletcher. The original plants were purchased from Avonlea Gardens in Chardon, Fletcher says, “And then last summer and this, we’ve supplemented with as many seed-grown plants as possible, generally planting in groups of three.” Groups of three, or any odd number, are a staple of garden design because the lack of symmetry forces the eye to continue moving and observing the plants.
Perennial wildflowers were also planted in clumps of three and include rose milkweed (also known as swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata), purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), golden Alexander (Zizia aurea), rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium), and mountain mint (Pycnanthemum tenuifolium). Fletcher estimates that around 15 plant species were planted in 2022, which has now grown to about 50 species, many of which were added through his wildly successful efforts to grow his own seedlings using the milk jug method. He notes that of the original plants, “We’ve lost a couple original species for one reason or another, and we’ve had to work around the groundhogs and what they go for. For example, they eat down every Rudbeckia hirta, so the only blooming ones are volunteers in the middle of spotted bee balm.”
This observation leads to a potential strategy for those of us with deer, rabbit, groundhog, and other critter problems: surround tasty plants, like black-eyed Susan and purple coneflower, with dense stands of plants in the mint family like bee balm and mountain mint that are generally left alone by herbivores. Being in the mint family, these plants will eventually crowd out the Rudbeckia and Echinacea if left to their own devices, but in a garden can be weeded out and given to other gardners during fall or spring clean-up.
Groundcover is another important component of a Northeast Ohio native garden to act as a living green mulch that crowds out weeds. Like many Northeast Ohio gardeners, Fletcher has found that native wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), common blue violet (Viola sororia), and pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta) are robust, low-growing plants that spread rapidly yet are relatively easy to keep contained to the desired area.
As with wood mulch, groundcover plants do not prevent all weeds from germinating, and removing weeds is an ongoing chore for Fletcher, Tausz, and their students. Fletcher says that it’s “annoying to see that some of the same weeds are still hanging on despite our best efforts…We have a lot of nutsedge (native or not, it’s not desirable in great quantity in this context) and quackgrass (invasive and such a pain) to keep working on.” He adds that it “continues to be work in progress.” A house is not finished on move-in day; it is just the beginning of years of finishing touches and second-guessing previous choices. So it is with a garden, which is a living home for wildlife that changes with the seasons, the years, and the gardeners.