Bayscape Blog 6/1/11


The Jewels in My Garden

By Judy DeFiglio



I woke up to the perfect summer day today. Sunny and warm with a soft breeze and no humidity, it can’t get better than this. No wait, it did get better! I stepped out on the deck to enjoy my morning tea and was greeted by this amazing addition to my garden. Sparkling like a jewel in the sunshine, this industrious hummingbird was hard at work among the monarda. He even stayed long enough for me to run inside for my camera. What a beautiful way to start the day.

This is the kind of bonus you get when you plant natives in your garden. You can attract hummingbirds to your yard without having to bother with feeders, having to boil sugar water and washing out the tubes. Plant beebalm (monarda) and the hummingbirds come. Monarda is easy to grow and is very fragrant both the flowers and the leaves. It does belong to the mint family and can spread quickly. It is not difficult to remove but still, I plant it in lean soil and do not water or fertilize it.

Another native that attracts hummingbirds is gayfeather (Liatris). These three feet tall spires of rosy-purple flowers look great planted with coneflowers (Echinacea) and black-eyed-Susans (Rudbeckia) in a summer garden. Liatris also attracts a variety of butterflies. It’s easy to grow and easy to care for.

Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) is a hummingbird magnet. The bright, red, tubular flowers are one of their favorites (and one of mine too). This native tends to be short-lived, but it is so pretty it is well worth it for however long it stays around. It does needs moist soil, so it is a good plant for a wet site or rain garden.

Hummingbirds will also visit your garden if you plant our native columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis). They are an important source of nectar because they bloom at the time that the hummingbirds are migrating north in the spring. I love these red and yellow flowers with their interesting spurs.

If you are looking for a flowering shrub that attracts hummingbirds, sweet pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia) is a great choice. This is a versatile plant that will grow in sun or shade and in wet or dry sites. The white flowers are fragrant and there is a pink form available. One cultivar is aptly named “Hummingbird”.

Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) is a hardy, fast growing vine that will grow in any soil. It can take dry, infertile soil and even salt spray from the ocean, but do not plant this one in fertile soil or it will take over your garden. That being said it is a spectacular native plant and hummingbirds love the large red trumpet shaped flowers. Grow it on something sturdy. It can be pruned back if it gets too large.

Try one or all of these native plants in your landscape and enjoy the extra special treat of these jeweled visitors to your garden.

Bayscape Blog 6/22/11

Hot Color for a Hot Summer

By Judy DeFiglio

What a great spring this has been. The blossoms on every tree, shrub and flower have been spectacular and abundant. Maybe that long snowy winter was worth it. The plants sure seem to have liked it. Now summer has arrived with another round of great native plants to put on their show. As the heat kicks it up a notch so does the color in the garden. Lots of the wonderful, drought tolerant natives that bloom in summer have intense colors: sizzling reds, hot oranges and deep golden yellows. Use these to add a spark to your landscape. Bright colors can really give a lift to a tired yard. A word of caution, don’t get carried away by making your whole garden look like it is on fire. Too many “hot” plants close your garden in and make it feel small. Too many intense colors give the garden a chaotic feel instead of the calm, serene feeling we usually like in our garden sanctuaries. Add a few areas of green, white or pastel flowers throughout your landscape to calm and cool things down .

Here are some native plants that welcome the heat of summer and add a great splash of color to your landscape. They can take the heat, they like it dry and an additional bonus, they all attract butterflies to your garden:


 Beebalm (Monarda fistulosa grows 2-3 feet tall with whorls of fragrant pink flowers.

Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) grows 2 to 4 feet tall with golden yellow flowers.

Blanketflower (Gaillardia ) 12 to 24 inches tall with red daisy-like flowers tipped with yellow. They bloom all summer long.

Blazing Star (Liatris spicata) grows 2 to4 feet tall with spikes of pinkish purple flowers.

Butterfly weed, (Asclepias tuberosa) 24 inches tall with bright orange clusters of flowers.

New England Aster (Aster Novae-Angliae) up to 60 inches tall with violet to purple flowers in late summer. Attract butterflies

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) grows 36 inches tall with rosy pink flowers.

Seaside Goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens) 2 to 4 feet tall with masses of golden yellow flowers in late summer.



Don’t forget that native grasses make a wonderful addition to your drought tolerant garden. They add movement, color, texture and interest that lasts through several seasons. A perfect choice to plant between two hot colored plants that may need a little help to blend well together.



Bitter switchgrass (Panicum amarum)- clump forming grass that gets 3 to 4 foot tall it. It can be grown right on the dunes.

Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)-grows up to 3 feet tall and turns a rich shade of red in the winter.

Northern Sea oats ( Chasmanthium latifolium)3 to 4 feet tall with interesting seed heads in fall.

Switchgrass (Panicum virgata) a blue-green bunch grass with attractive fall and winter color it grows 4 to 5 feet tall. a great choice to replace Miscanthus



Keep following this blog for updates on several native plant gardens that are in development around Ocean County. Jakes Branch has started their Native Plant Trail adding 70 new native shrubs and trees along the trail (see picture) and several display gardens are in development. The Ocean County Master Gardeners are currently adding a native garden to their display garden in front of the Ocean County Agriculture Office on Whitesville Rd. When completed these gardens will be great resources for residents to visit to get ideas and information on how to start their own native plant garden.

Bayscape Blog 5/12/11

Beautiful Baptisia

by Judy DeFiglio

If you are looking for a spectacular plant for your spring garden consider the Baptisia australis (Blue False Indigo). Big, bold, blue and beautiful, this plant has it all. The intense violet-blue pealike flowers on four foot tall stems really command attention. The leaves are an interesting blue-green color with an oblong shape. The flowers are long lasting and followed by two inch long black seed pods that add an additional season of interest to your landscape. The plant emerges in spring with flower stalks that look almost like asparagus, then grows several feet to bloom in mid May.

Baptisia prefer full sun but can grow in part shade. They have a deep taproot and do not like to be divided or moved, so plant them where you want them to grow. I recommend you plant them in the back of the border or center of an island bed. Though this is a perennial, it is shrub-like in appearance and gets three to four feet wide, so give it room to grow. Even after the flowers fade this is a plant that will look good in your garden. It may be large but it is not sprawling and retains a nice vase-like shape.

This native plant grows well in our sandy soil, but enjoys a bit of compost mixed in, especially if you are growing it at the beach. It even has a good degree of salt tolerance. Since it is in the legume family it has nitrogen-fixing ability so no fertizer is needed, great news for our environment.

While the blue is my favorite, there are also white and yellow flowered varieties of Baptisia. All of them put on an impressive display.

I am very excited about all the enthusiastic gardeners I am meeting as I continue to spread the word on using native plants to beautify their landscape and help the environment. I will be posting updates on workshops and lectures and hope to meet lots more of you in the future. Become a member of the Littoral Society and receive emails of upcoming events at http://www.littoralsociety.org/

Bayscape Blog 5/6/11

Spring Beauties

By Judy DeFiglio

What a gorgeous spring we are having this year! I can’t remember when we have had such a beautiful display of spring flowering trees and shrubs. I have so many blooms on my dogwoods, redbuds and fothergilla it is amazing. The chokeberries are opening and the viburnums are ready to burst. I am so happy I switched to all these native plants a few years ago, the rewards are endless, and the only work I had to do this spring was rake some leaves, which I used in my compost pile, and renew some mulch in my garden beds.

You can send me all the glossy catalogs you want advertising the top 10 new plants for 2011, I admit they are pretty to look at, but, what really makes my heart skip a beat is stepping outside and seeing the beautiful, uniquely shaped blossoms on my old fashioned bleeding hearts ( Dicentra eximia). This native perennial has arching stalks of pink, heart- shaped flowers, grows 18 inches tall and is a spring bloomer that puts on quite a show. It can take some morning sun but prefers some shade in the afternoon. The foliage is fern like and greenish-blue. Another native Dicentra, dutchmen’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) is an all white variety with interesting pants-shaped flowers in early spring. It is smaller, only growing to 6 inches tall and prefers a moist, shady spot.

My mountain pinks (Phlox subulata) are another native perennial that looks especially spectacular this year. The carpet of pink flowers is so thick you can hardly see the green leaves. This plant likes well drained, sandy soil and full sun. It looks so pretty spreading through my rock garden. It’s been blooming for several weeks already and even after to flowers fade, the fine, narrow leaved foliage will continue to look great throughout the summer.

If you weren’t able to attend the Littoral Society’s Native Plant Workshop at Hammett’s Garden Center last weekend you really missed a great day. Beautiful weather, wonderful native plants, interesting info on how to go native and an enthusiastic group of people interested in environmentally friendly gardening. Who could ask for more! Helen Henderson, Policy Advocate for the Littoral Society explained, “Hammett’s Garden Center is our first retail nursery to commit to providing a specific area dedicated to native plants for our Bayscape for Barnegat Bay program. This is the American Littoral Society’s grass roots Shore Stewardship program that encourages residents of the Barnegat Bay watershed to adopt more bay-friendly landscaping and grounds maintenance practices including using low-maintenance native species instead of non-natives that require excessive water, fertilizer, and pesticides that ultimately run off the land into the bay. The program’s mantra is, Don’t landscape- Bayscape.” To learn more about the Bayscape for Barnegat Bay program, visit www.littoralsociety.org/bayscape_for_barnegat_ bay.aspx. Hammett’s will be stocking the native plants suggested in this blog with new shipments arriving each week.

Time to go outside and enjoy the show!