This recent dip in the temperature, or shall I say arctic plunge, reminds me of a winter not so long ago when we lost a fair number of plants to the cold. The number of panicked calls and distressed emails I received after that fateful night was sad and eye-opening. So many homeowners lost all, or a fair amount, of their shrubs in one fell swoop. Could this calamity have been avoided? While that winter event was a bit different with a rapid and steep decline in temperature that made it impossible for plants to use their arsenal of defense: substituting sugars for water in leaves or deploying antifreeze-like chemicals, this cold snap should remind us of the fragility of our landscape.
It only takes one weather event, one pest, one disease to wreak havoc on our gardens. And why is this? Simple! We tend to plant monocultures. A walk around my neighborhood reveals a depressing number of the same shrubs repeated street after street, block after block. Boxwoods, Taxus, burning bush, and Otto Luykens are the shrub du jour. Although the number of Otto Luykens is quite diminished thanks to the aforementioned winter weather event. The first question is why? Why the allegiance to just a handful of plants when in our area we have an incredible, some would say overly daunting, list of plants that would be quite at home in our gardens? Second, I wonder why don’t we want anything new to look at? Wouldn’t it be nice to come home to a front landscape that is distinctly and unabashedly unique and a reflection of the owner? One house’s front garden could be adorned with white flowering plants, the next a short matrix meadow, and the third an English cottage garden gracefully spilling over the front walk. If we are all so unique why are our gardens so homogenous?
A resilient landscape begins with plant diversity. The more plants you add to your garden and the more diverse the plant offering, the more resilient is your landscape. For one, an event will only harm a few plants, not the entire lot. Second, the more beneficial insects and birds we invite to the gardens, the more nature will handle the eradication of unwanted pests. In other words, the good bugs eliminate the bad bugs.
If you’re to do anything this year in your garden, consider how to add more plants. Consider how to expand your plant offering to create a garden that is resilient, beautiful, and supports nature. This can be as easy as reclaiming the areas of mulch in the garden beds and giving them over to new plants. It may be adding a second row of shrubs of a few varieties to the privacy planting to introduce flowers, berries, movement, and textures. And it may be as easy, although a bit of muscle will be needed, as removing the invasive groundcover, and adding beneficial plants.
Be overly generous with your planting this year. Give your landscape the armor it needs to defend itself against weather events, pests, and disease with a wide variety of plants.