Here in Appalachia, April and May are wonderful times to make space in your gardens for plants that delight all year round. Here are just a few ideas from our collections.
Like its close relatives, the rhododendrons, mountain laurel has been grown as a garden plant for over 200 years. The clusters of light pink perfect flowers appear in late spring on spreading, many-branched shrubs bearing glossy, evergreen leaves. It is an eastern plant, found on well-drained, acid soils from Maine to the Gulf Coast and is especially common in the uplands within that range. Plants in the southern Appalachians have been known to reach 35 feet in height. A mountain laurel will be an anchor plant in many perennial gardens in the mountains, helping prevent erosion and providing shade for birds and other wildlife.
Renewing America’s Food Traditions alliance (RAFT) and other researchers are discovering Appalachian perennial crops, such as creasy or greasy beans. Agrodiversity, while clinical, is helped by the author's training and experience as an ethnoecologist and heirloom gardener, providing a mutual interest as he discussed the perennial food stock of the central Appalachians. Most families he visited were in North Carolina. This essay, which is the third in the series “Recollections, Reflections, and Revelations: Ethnobiologists and their First Time in the Field”, is a personal reflection by the researcher on his experience and involvement in kinship and friendship networks while conducting agrobiodiversity research in southern Appalachia.
Tired of weeding and mowing? 70 different species and cultivars of native carex for the MidAtlantic region mean that you can place them down and then let them loose, without having to do backbreaking labor to keep them maintained. They serve as soft as clover without the maintenance of a lawn or the annual cost of mulching. Their neutral greens can also highlight the showier perennials in your garden. Who wants to regularly mow a large grassy area in August anyway? These native plants can set down roots, keep the heat controlled around larger plants, and provide show-stopping results.
them down and then let them loose, without having to do backbreaking labor to keep them maintained. They serve as soft as clover without the maintenance of a lawn or the annual cost of mulching. Their neutral greens can also highlight the showier perennials in your garden. Who wants to regularly mow a large grassy area in August anyway? These native plants can set down roots, keep the heat controlled around larger plants, and provide show-stopping results.