The pansies planted in the most sun (the most pastel grouping) are not doing nearly as well as the other two groups. I have yet to decide whether it’s worth it to try to find a new spot for them ASAP or to wait a little while, till the trees leaf out and the taller perennials further back get, well, taller, and see if that helps. It also seems that a slug or some other flower-eating thing is munching on them at night (why it is eating those and not the other pansies, though, is strange to me).
The nemesia ‘Sundrops’ that were planted on/towards the north side of the back garden bed definitely seem to be blooming more heavily than the ones planted on/towards the south side of the back garden bed. I don’t know if this is a temporary thing or if I should relocate the rest of the ‘Sundrops’ to the same area as the ones that are doing better. I don’t know if it’s because the ones on the south side are closer to a building that can cast shadows or because of something about the soil or because of their neighbors or what. So for now I am watching and waiting.
When recently ordering from Toadshade, it never occurred to me that the plants might arrive at the same time that the maples are blooming, nor that maple season would hit me so hard this year (one of my top pollen allergies is to maple pollen, pretty amusing for someone living in the Maple Central that is New England, but for some reason it’s worse this year; I wonder if the different species of maple are less staggered in their blooming than usual or something). Unfortunately, my reconsidering my timing in ordering is too late, since the plants are already here! So for now, I am keeping them (unwrapped) in (wide-open) boxes, hoping soon I’ll have a day where I can go outside without having such a bad reaction so fast. Toadshade, by the way, is a great nursery that I’ve been ordering from on and off for several years, one of the best mail-order nursery sources native North American plants, including some I’ve rarely seen elsewhere. They specify in their catalog what the native range is for the plant, including any states where it is rare, and also specify in what states it has escaped into the wild (if anywhere). In an old garden I grew tons of moist-to-wet native plants, and it was strange to have to skip over most of those this time, since this garden has “small pockets of moist soil” at best, rather than the naturally soggy soil I once worked with. However, it was lovely to be able to order plants that like sunny, dry sites, as that is something I am not as used to working with. Sun is not so easy to come by in today’s small urban garden plots!
I can kind of understand native plant purists, who think the best plants are plants that were originally native to one’s current very specific geographic area. However, I also feel like we have so changed our environment, especially in cities – which are by their very nature human constructs – that the best we can do is to provide plants that are food and shelter for the native critters whose lives we’ve also so altered. To that effect, I generally focus on native plants, but I also don’t believe that every native I plant has to have been originally found in the Boston area specifically. This area is no longer at all like what it was when colonists first arrived and to pretend that it is, is to me a bit silly. Additionally, since non-native and non-local native plants are often good sources of food – especially of nectar – I feel like incorporating them in an ecologically sensitive way (being particularly careful to avoid invasive plants at all costs) can be helpful to pollinators. I strive to have at least one or two good sources of nectar available (read: blooming) in my garden at all times.
