Native plants spreading good cheer

As we enter June with everything blooming, I feel like putting aside serious garden subjects to drink in the garden’s exuberance. So I thought I’d check on some of the native plants I’ve added in the past couple of years and show you how they’re doing.

    This week I was thrilled to see my cross vine (Bignonia capreolata) burst out with its coral, orange, and yellow trumpet-shaped flowers against the garage. I was expecting it to need more time to recover from transplantation and our northern winter. But no, it’s on the move and offering lots of opportunities for pollinators already.

Cross vine is a vigorous grower

    Nearby, a trumpet honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) is covered with flowers. It seems to bloom more generously every year, although its roots are in a dry patch under the house’s eaves and surrounded on three sides by bluestone pavers. The long narrow flowers are popular with hummingbirds as well as insect pollinators.

Trumpet honeysuckle: easy and gorgeous

    Among the native shrubs, Carolina allspice (Calycanthus floridus) is putting on an unexpectedly uninhibited show. I’d planted one in deep shade a few years ago. It flowers, but sparsely. A newcomer added last spring gets much more sun, and it’s responded accordingly. The weird dark red flowers are fascinating, and I know they’re drawing native insects to the yard.

Carolina allspice has distinctive flowers

    Next to it is a flame azalea (Rhododendron calendulaceum) that I moved from where it was languishing in the front yard, struggling to compete with the roots of the Norway maple towering in the curb strip. When I dug the azalea up, I found it had very little root mass, although it had been there for years. Now it’s got more room to expand in looser soil, and it’s already blooming despite the trauma of last year’s transplantation.

I hope this flame azalea will flourish in its new location

    In the same area, a volunteer black cherry tree (Prunus serotina) is growing by leaps and bounds. This spring it’s showing its first flowers. The challenge with this tree will be to keep it and its offspring from taking over, but I’m encouraging it because of its superior wildlife value.

Black cherry hosts many native insects

    Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) is technically a sub-shrub, although it’s only about an inch tall. I chose this woody plant as a groundcover in a new sunny bed in 2018. It didn’t do much for the first year, but now it’s expanding in all directions, sending out branching stems bearing shiny new leaves. I love seeing this plant growing wild on Cape Cod, and I hope it will spread out even more as a lovely background to taller perennials.

Bearberry likes sandy soil and sun

    In a shadier section of the same bed, a single young creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera) has emerged and flowered. I recently saw creeping phlox recommended as a groundcover in a Boston Globe story about lawn alternatives. My goal is to see this bed carpeted with a tapestry of groundcovers, so that no mulch is showing. That won’t happen soon, but the creeping phlox’s survival is a good sign.

Creeping phlox getting ready to creep

    Why are these plants doing so well this year? I don’t know, but I’m glad.