Bayscape Blog

Bayscape Blog
By Judy DeFiglio
Plant of the Month for July
As a garden designer, the hardest question to answer is “what’s your favorite plant?” There are so many to choose from and each one has something to love. So when I was asked to write this blog, I thought it would be hard to choose the first featured plant. Once I took a stroll through my garden, I realized the choice was easy. Black-eyed Susan or Rudbeckia, that golden yellow workhorse of the garden, is the real stand out this year. With this extreme heat and drought, many of my plants are having a tough time, their flowers withering in the hot sun, but not my rudbeckia. It just keeps putting on a show.
Rudbeckia fulgida is an easy care perennial, native to New Jersey. It can take full sun to part shade and average garden soil. This golden yellow flowers with a dark brown center grows 20 to 30 inches tall and bloom from mid- summer until frost. Once established it can handle drought and heat. If that isn’t enough it also attracts butterflies to your garden. The most popular choice is ‘Goldsturm’

Welcome to Native Shore

Welcome to Native Shore, a blog from the American Littoral Society about it's Shore Steward program. In the Shore Steward program it is our mission to restore native plants to coastal New Jersey using partnerships with private and public organizations and individual citizens.

Why are we doing this? Is there a benefit? We're doing it because 150 years of coastal sprawl has left New Jersey's natural habitats almost non-existent and many of the plants the evolved here to live and flourish in the natural climate and conditions of coastal New Jersey have all but disappeared. They remain only in a few remnant natural areas and gardens of a few home owners who remember them from their youth. And yet there are great benefits to restoring native plants, not the least of which is the return to a vibrant and rugged natural beauty.

Along the way here we will seek to educate about the benefits and beauty of native plants. We will demonstrate how native plants can be incorporated into home gardens, public parks, municipal buffer zones, and corporate and business properties and lawns. We will demonstrate how schools and civic groups can participate. We will talk about how teachers can show students and citizens can show their neighbors the benefit of a healthier watershed that derives from the addition of more native plants.

Most of all we hope to engage you in this process. we look forward to your learning about your experience with New Jersey's native plants, your advice on how to care for them and where to plant them. We seek also your help in establishing partnerships that will help us put shovel to soil and plants in the ground. Do you belong to a garden club? Do work in a company that has a flat, over fertilized lawn? Do your belong to a civic organization in your local community? Are you on an environmental commission? Do you belong to a Rotary Club? Do you work for the Department of Public Works in your town?

Do you have ideas on how we can reach out and further this process? Reach out to us, we want to hear from you.