Prince William gardners going native

Imagine a garden that only needs work twice a year.

That's the vision Prince William Master Gardeners are using to fashion a low-maintenance garden at a horti-cultural learning center in Bristow.

Their goal is to only work on the woodland garden twice a year in hopes that local homeowners will give up fertiliz-ers and follow their lead.

The key to growing a healthy garden with minimal work is using native species of plants, they said. They won't need fertilization and if placed in the correct soil and light setting, native plants don't need much fussing at all.

Compare that to a typical lawn care schedule.

The average American spends 40 hours per season fertilizing, mowing and treating a lawn.

The teaching gardens at Linton Hall are designed to show people alternatives to the grassy lawn addiction, said Betty Truax, one of the Master Gardeners working on the woodland garden located at the St. Benedictine Monas-tery, 9535 Linton Hall Road in Bristow.

She and a group of fellow Master Gardeners planted trees and weeded the woodland teaching garden one morning in late March. Their garden is a mulched, shady plot with adolescent shrubs and perennials that are protected from the sun by large, leafy trees.

Plants that don't make it from year to year are not replaced.

Ones that survived the last year are red and yellow twig dogwood shrubs and hellebores that flourish in the shady area where grass has a difficult time surviving.

BACKYARD SANCTUARIES

Helen Walter is another native plant advocate who has a shady yard at her home near the Occoquan reser-voir.

Part of her interest in planting native plants is their comfort in a shady area—and their benefits to wildlife.

Lilacs, popular, beautiful plants, are not favored in Walter's yard, she said.

"There is absolutely nothing in a lilac bush that our animals can use," said Walter. "Bees can't seem to get any nourishment out of the blossoms."

Her gardens will be open to the public on April 27 for the Prince William Wildflower Society's annual educa-tional garden tour.

"The whole idea is, if we continue to plant the stuff that these creatures have evolved with, they will continue to have a food source and not have to depend on our bird feeders," she said.

Neighborhood birds like her pokeberry bushes and the swallowtail butterflies love her native milkweed and Joe Pye weed, a

deciduous flowing plant with "lovely" pink flowers, she said.

Hummingbirds love cardinal vines and trumpet flowers, she said. Both plants are native.

Her backyard fits into the rest of the neighborhood because "we like to keep it natural," she said.

Some people won't ascribe to a purely native approach, she

admitted.

"After all, everybody's different and there are going to be people who want their place to look like a country club," she said.

Patrick Farley is a green building architect from Richmond and cultivated a native backyard scene at his home. He said it maintai

itself.

"It should be a cool place to be, not something to dread. It's really easy to do," Farley said.

The savings in his time and money pleases him but he said he's also happy with the fact that his backyard isn't adding too much of a bad thing to local waters and the Chesapeake Bay. Too much nitrogen in water-ways causes dead zones where fish can't survive.

The one thing that homeowners can do to help the bay is to cut down on fertilizer use, said Chesapeake Bay Pro-gram spokesman Josh Voelker.

"You have to ask yourself is a healthy or pretty lawn more important than a healthy ecosystem?" Voelker asked.

Without fertilizer, how can a grass lawn maintain a luscious green color?

Native plant advocates say scrap the grass and adopt a native attitude toward aesthetics.

And so the debate between the manicured lawn enthusiasts and native garden purists continues.

"That's an aesthetic that you have to get used to seeing," said Lou Verner, wildlife biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Verner travels around the state preaching the gospel of the importance of native species to architects, landscapers, home owner associations and even turf companies.

Neatly trimmed grass lawns look nice, but wreak havoc on waterways, he tells them.

"We have an ecosystem under attack," he recently told the James River Green Building Council at a meeting in Richmond. Participants ranged from green building architects to grassroots organizers trying to change the landscapes of their communities.

He compared the American landscape of fragmented forests and altered ecosystems to a car that hasn't re-ceived maintenance since its purchase.

"Unfortunately, we as humans, at least in this country, haven't really had the car stop yet. We ha-ven't had that wake-up call," he said.

Verner said that by restoring native landscapes, humans can ensure that ecosystems will fulfill the jobs of water filters, air filters and food and shelter for wildlife.

Not to mention, these native habitats provide homes for certain bugs, which are the first link in the ecosystem chain. Without bugs, birds can't thrive, he said.

And biologists know bugs are on the decline because so are the birds.

"We know that these species are going to continue to decline unless we do something different," Verner said.

Native plant growing ti

Know your native plants. Some like it hot. Others like the shade. Bluebells love floods and shade. Some other plants love well-drained, sun bathed soil.

Customize your native plant selection according to your yard's characteristics. Remember, native plants need to find the appropriate home to be low maintenance.

Don't forget shrubs and small trees, which provide homes and food for native birds.

Native plants include:

Shady

American bittersweet

Partridgeberry

Button bush

Flowering Dogwood

Full su

Swamp rose

Red chokeberry

Silky Dogwood

Carolina Rose

Dry soil

Muscadine Grape

Butterflyweed

Milkweed

Purple Coneflower

Moist soil

Cut-leaved Coneflower

New York Ironweed

Summer Phlox

Joe Pye Weed

Calendar of plant event

April 19: Earth Day 2008 in Prince William County from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the plaza of the McCoart Government Building, 1 County Complex Court,  Woodbridge. Learn how to protect the planet, participate in a scavenger hunt or interact with hands-on activities and demonstrations. Hosted by the 2008 Youth Ambassadors for the Environ-ment.

April 27: Open house and garden tour. Three Prince William Wildflower Society members are opening their homes and gardens to the public to showcase their years-long handiwork on their landscapes from noon to 5 p.m. The three homes are at the following addresses: 10553 River Run Court in the Occoquan Forest neighborhood; 7997 Knight-shayes Drive in the Lake Jackson area; 8655 Weir St., Manassas. For more information, e-mail or call Nancy Vehrs at 703-368-2898.

May 3: Lawn and Garden Show hosted by the Virginia Cooperative Extension at the teaching garden at the St. Benedictine Monastery, 9535 Linton Hall Road, Bristow. The even is free and runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. rain or shine. Exhibits, demonstrations, plants and food. Fun for gardeners of all ages. Visit pwcgov.org/vce/enr

May 10: Native plant sale. The Prince William Wildflower Society members propagate perennials, shrubs and trees for the sale, which begins at 9 a.m. sharp. They sell out quick! Bethel Lutheran Church grounds, 8712 Plantation Lane i

Manassas.