Category: Home & Garden

NOT SO MANY years ago, relative to the history of horticulture, even a now-ubiquitous phrase like “pollinator plant” wasn’t part of our everyday gardening language and mindset the way it is today. Our collective consciousness about the importance of native plants has grown fast, and with it have come more new words for our vocabulary.

One phrase that I’ve heard a lot lately is “keystone plant”—an expression I probably didn’t even know five years ago—describing native species that are disproportionately important to local ecosystems, the sort of powerhouse plants of all.

I wanted to learn more about just what keystone plants are, and which ones belong in my garden and why, and Uli Lorimer, director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust, helped explain all that to me.

Uli, who has devoted his career to native plants,  also writes the “Ask the Gardener” column for “The Boston Globe.”

Read along as you listen to the Dec. 15, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

keystone plants with uli lorimer

Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:26:25

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Margaret Roach: How are you over there across Massachusetts from me?

Uli Lorimer: Trying to stay warm [laughter], but delighted to be here.

Margaret: Good luck with that. So as I said in the introduction, I think the phrase keystone plants—it’s one that’s spoken a lot lately. Do you remember the first time you heard it?

Uli: I probably put myself in your camp, maybe about five to seven years ago, and would also really credit Doug Tallamy for bringing this to sort of more of the public’s awareness.

In researching the concept itself, it dates back quite a ways, several decades ago, when it was first coined, and it came out of oceanographic research. And I think it’s one of these concepts that I think has generated a lot of discussion, at least in the ecology world, generated lots of associated terms like indicator species and flagship species and functional groups and all these sorts of things that I think have really helped move the needle in how we think about the role of gardens and the environment and how they interact with each other.

Margaret: So even before it had this name keystone plants that, as you said, Doug Tallamy of the University of Delaware and the Homegrown National Park nonprofit, has helped popularize in more recent years, it was kind of out there. I forgot it came from the ocean [laughter]; I forgot that.

Uli: A Dr. [Robert] Paine coined it, and had discovered that when you remove one particular species in this system that he was studying, it had a sort of cascade of negative effects. And he thought, wow, this is sort of akin to that keystone that sits at the center of an arch and keeps the whole thing together. And if you remove it, then these ecosystems collapse.

Margaret: And so originally, I guess as native plants have become more and more the subject of research and more widely used and so forth, a lot of the research initially was probably comparing the impact on the ecosystems of native versus non-native plants, I would imagine; that’s probably where it began. And then more like natives compared to one another. And from there we found the keystones, the ones that were the most impactful.

Uli: Yeah, I think that’s generally the-

Margaret: I’m oversimplifying; excuse me [laughter].

Uli: Well, but I think that what I’ve come to recognize nowadays is that ecological horticulture is really multidisciplinary, in which you have to draw from data sets and pools of information and expertise from the entomology world, from the ornithology world, from those who study fungi, and that the interactions of particular insect group with plants has probably long been well known, but unknown to the horticultural world until we started putting together these pieces and connecting the dots as you just did.

Margaret: And once these research studies happened, including by Doug Tallamy’s team and other colleagues in the native plant world, I mean, some of the statistics, some of the numbers, are pretty astonishing. I remember the one, because he has focused us a lot on the importance of caterpillars—of the Lepidoptera—and the caterpillars and how they support the food webs so critically. And I think it was like 14 percent of native plant species support 90 percent of the caterpillars, that then in turn support the terrestrial food web. It’s this small number. And again, those sort of “keystones.”

Uli: Yeah. I mean, if we could define this in the modern sense as something that has a disproportionate impact on biodiversity far beyond its abundance on the landscape. And I think that drawing the connections with butterflies and moths and the earlier stages of their lives, and the fact that I read 96 percent of all songbirds need insects to be reproductively successful. And I was really astonished to hear that.

And then a friend of mine, Dr. Desiree Narango, published a study a few years back kind of quantifying this for Carolina chickadees. And I often cite this research that a pair of chickadees requires more than 5,000 caterpillars to raise a brood of chicks in a season, which is just a stupefying amount of caterpillars, if you think about it. And where are they going to find it?

Margaret: I always say that caterpillars are the baby food of the songbird set; that’s my popular way of saying it [laughter]. Because really that is even bird species, songbird species, who are not as adults as predominantly insectivorous, at that time in their life cycle, in their life history, when they’re raising a brood, that is the baby food, that is the go-to stuff. Even if they use seeds much more or other creatures, other things, other sources of food, much more, especially seeds.

Uli: It stands to reason that seeds and fruit are resources that are more abundant in the later parts of the year. And there’s this sort of beautiful convergence of not only plants emerging and flowering, but also all that insect life and biodiversity and biomass that’s so well timed with the plants, all coming together at the same time.  And I was just thinking that despite the fact that a pair of chickadees might clean out 5,000 caterpillars in the immediate vicinity, there’s still more for all of those moths and butterflies to complete their life cycle. So I mean, there must be literally tens of thousands hiding in the forest, if not more, that we never see because they’re all up high in the canopy.

Margaret: And apparently the caterpillars are protein-packed, I guess. They are a really dense form of nutrition. So that’s critical for those little babies, too, I think.

Uli: But I think one of the big shifts here, I think, is that we may have assumed that adjacent, nearby natural spaces were intact enough to support all of these organisms, and that we could really focus our gardens on just being pretty. And I think that there’s a growing realization that the health of forests and meadows and so forth isn’t maybe not as great as we thought, and that gardeners who really wish to make a positive impact are thinking, what kind of intentional choices can I make in my gardens to help? To help create wildlife corridors or provide resources that just aren’t reliably in the environment anymore? I think a lot of this is what drives this movement forward.

Margaret: So at Native Plant Trust, and then dot dot dot (if we can translate some of the lessons of how you use and how you think about deciding what plants to use when you and your team go about the work that you do). You have propagation operations, you have a lot of different things going on besides two properties and more I guess that you’re also conserving, but the two primary locations. How do you decide what the role of keystone plants is—how often does this come up in your work, and how should we gardeners be thinking about keystone plants? Because I mean, can we even list the keystone plants? It’s not the same in every region.

Uli: I think about one of our core missions is also to educate the public about all the stories around native plants. And so we do quite a lot of research in the winter to try to uncover what those relationships are between a particular species and maybe an insect herbivore or a specialist bee or specialist pollinator, or if it’s a host for a particular butterfly or moth. And I think that we strive to find ways to incorporate those plants into our displays with the belief that we are providing not just something beautiful for humans to enjoy and a sense of place, but also a missing resource for these organisms.

The challenge I think, in any garden, is how do you find the balance between species diversity and biodiversity? And you could make the argument that lots of different things is a net benefit for the wild, versus a design that is legible to us that we can make sense of, and that there’s sort of a balance and a middle ground between what we get out of gardens and what we’re providing for the local wildlife. And so I think that’s always a little bit of a push and pull where we love plants, we want to grow everything we possibly can, but sometimes the site conditions don’t allow us to grow everything. And so you have to make hard choices sometimes.

Margaret: And finding out which ones though are the keystones of our area—I mean, it feels like that’s a really good educational first step. Understanding that, knowing what they are, both the woody plants and the herbaceous plants. I mean, I know that Doug Tallamy, he wrote a whole book about oaks, and oaks are in various habitats powerhouses, definite powerhouses, and it all makes sense. And then there’s other woody plants, but also again, herbaceous perennials and so forth.

Uli: A lot of herbaceous perennials, too [above, Monarda fistulosa visited by Hemaris thysbe]. And there’s some good resources. The National Wildlife Federation has some great lists that are based on his work. I’ll say that there’s not like a one-stop shop to figure out everything that there is. And a lot of the research now is skewed towards caterpillars, which we’ve connected really well with bird life. But there’s still a whole lot we don’t know about insect herbivores, other stem-cavity nesters—organisms that use plants as habitat, not necessarily just as food.

All of this, if I take a step back, I think that we are all trending towards this greater awareness because there’s a realization that our choices have real positive impacts for the environment. I think that’s really what this boils down to. And that welcoming native plants is a welcome step, but you don’t have to be a purist about it in your gardens.

Horticulture has introduced a lot of really beautiful plants from other parts of the world. Some of them, we’ll say, have turned out to be harmful as they have escaped, but the reality is that wildlife interacts with all of them in one way or another. And I think that Doug Tallamy’s message of aiming for 70 percent native is a really good one, because it’s a goal; it’s a journey upon which each individual gardener can decide how fast and how quickly they work towards it. As long as you don’t lose that intention of trying to make a forward-thinking choice, that’s going to help protect what remains.

Margaret: I think one thing that I’m hearing you say is that the keystone plants for caterpillars might be a little bit different than the list of keystone plants for say, bees—like for pollinators. So if I wanted to think about pollinators, for instance, and I wanted to think about perennials, herbaceous perennials, flowering perennials, would I be looking probably—and I’m going to guess—in the Aster family, the sort of daisy-like flowers, and also maybe the mint family, because that’s where I see a lot of the action in my garden?

Uli: I’d throw in the carrot family too, the Apiaceae. [Above, pollinator on Cicuta maculata (Apiaceae)]

Margaret: Oh, right. The umbels.

Uli: The umbels are really wonderful. But what a lot of those, particularly the Aster family, what they share is a general flower shape that accepts all comers. It doesn’t matter if you’re a big muscular bumblebee or a small sweat bee or something.

Margaret: Accessibility [laughter].

Uli: Accessibility. And now because of this long relationship that flower shape and insect shape have driven specialization, it’s good to have the generalists in there. And you also need to provide for are specialists that need not just flower shape. I was just thinking about spring beauties [Claytonia virginica] and the spring beauty mining bee, and here’s a really close little relationship that bee needs the particular nectar and pollen of that plant to be reproductively successful, and nothing else—there’s no substitute for it. And so I think this is where favoring a native species to support those specialists is really good; there’s a strong argument to made for that. [Below, spring beauty mining bee on Claytonia caroliniana.]

Margaret: Because the generalists could use that as well as many other things.

Uli: Absolutely. You could have a lawn full of crocuses and spring beauties and you get both the support for the specialist and maybe a little bit more design choices with the crocuses, but we know crocuses aren’t going to take over the world, and even if they did, that wouldn’t be so bad.

Margaret: Right. But what we’re saying is we’re going to look in the case of perennials, for instance—and really no matter where we are, because morphologically structurally, those three groups of plants that we just named as families are, there’s structurally there, again, accessible—we’re going to look probably in those families. And I can give the links; you alluded to some of the websites that may have lists by bioregion of keystone plants and so forth where people can do a little homework. But again, you have to know what your keystone plants for what you’re looking for, which is a little more complicated.

Uli: Well, for pollinators, I think there’s another really fantastic resource, that’s by a man named Jarrod Fowler.

Margaret: Oh, yes.

Uli: And he has these really wonderful lists of native perennials and all of the bee species that they support or that they’ve known to associate with. And there’s plenty of options in Composite family and mint and carrot family and then loads of others. And that gives you, again, that sort of research-based, data-based background to inform your choices in a garden of which perennials you can include to support not only the generalists, but also with an eye to the specialists.

Margaret: And in woody plants, I mean, I mentioned that Doug has taught us so much about the oaks, but in woody plants, are there some… I mean, for instance, in your work at Native Plant Trust, are there some genera of woody plants that you feel like are real powerhouses that you see their contribution as outsize, kind of?

Uli: Yeah. I think of the first one comes to mind are viburnums, and viburnums I think are… there’s a good deal of diversity. The flowers support a lot of pollinators. There are a number of Lepidoptera that host on viburnums, and then you have the added benefit of really nutritious fruit that birds rely on in the fall. And so you really get a whole different sets of interactions as the season goes by. And then I think from the human perspective, they’re beautiful shrubs. They’ve got wonderful fall color. If you want an alternative to your burning bush, like put in a Viburnum nudum and you won’t be disappointed. So that comes to mind. [Above, Viburnum dentatum in fruit.]

A lot of the Vaccinium–

Margaret: I was going to say crazy about blueberries; I’m crazy about blueberries, yeah.

Uli: Yes. And for all the same reasons that the flower support a variety of pollinators; the birds love the fruit. You have to compete with them a little bit to get the fruit, but fall color is exceptional. I mean, there’s all these things that kind of converge and I think make them real keystone species in a garden.

Margaret: And with the blueberries, I’ve never really picked any. I’ve had some of them for the shrubs for 30-plus years, but I sort of tucked them all in these kind of what I call biohedges, at the borders of the property, all these woody plant combinations; they’re everywhere. There’s a few here and a few there and a few everywhere. And the insects and the birds love them. They’re not for me. And what is for me is that gorgeous red fall color, and they’re beautiful. They’re beautiful plants, but they don’t need really much attention, yet they draw in all the wildlife.

Uli: Yeah. I think this is a good segue, too, to the idea of the right balance between what I would call necessary maintenance in gardens—so making sure that there aren’t leaves on your stone patio that are going to cause you to slip and fall—and that balance with what I would think of as really ecologically forward practices. Like leaving stems, leaving the leaves, the idea of creating soft landings, your intentional hedges that are not for you to harvest from, but are for the wildlife, or intentional brush piles. Or my friend Edwina von Gal and her snake habitat that she created. I love that. I absolutely love it.

So I think that’s sort of another perspective to bring into this conversation, that you can really maximize the impact of keystone species by pairing those plants with a balanced approach of how you maintain your garden. Because there’s not much point in planting a viburnum if you’re going to then blow all the leaves away in the fall and rake it up and then replace it with wood chip mulch.

Margaret: Let alone an oak tree, where goodness knows how many creatures are going to be in the leaf litter of that tree that’s going to be fairly persistent.

Uli: Absolutely.

Margaret: You want to try to let that be, as you say, like a soft landing, a place that can perpetuate and be largely untouched.

Uli: Yeah. And I think you start to put together this concept of a real workhorse species. That idea, and the fact that gardens aren’t just for us anymore, and combined with some really conscientious and ecologically sensitive maintenance practices, and the result is a garden that bursts with life, that provides all of these wonderful opportunities for you to observe, to be inspired, to gain all of the benefits of gardening, which we know is less stress and more happiness.

Margaret: One more tree or shrub for instance, that you want to shout out, because I just think the woody plants are so important and they’re permanent fixtures in the garden.

Uli: I’m going to call out dogwoods.

Margaret: Yay. Good, good.

Uli: Because I think you have both the beautiful small-flowered Cornus florida [above] and its red fruit again, and the interactions. And then all of the wonderful shrubby ones that exist in our wetland margins that have, similar to the viburnums, the ability to draw different groups of organisms throughout the season. So my top two are going to be dogwoods and viburnums.

Margaret: O.K. Well, Uli Lorimer it’s always fun to talk to you. And yeah, keystone plant: I think it’s been one of the phrases of the year for sure. I’ve heard it more and more and more all the time. Thanks for making time today. Stay warm over there.

Uli: Will do. You do the same.

(Photos from Uli Lorimer; used with permission.)

prefer the podcast version of the show?

MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its 16th year in March 2025. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. Listen locally in the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Eastern, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the Dec. 15, 2025 show using the player near the top of this transcript. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

;

Happy Friday, GPODers!

We’ve been treated to a lot of new gardens this week. Kathy, Ami, Deborah, and Barbara all shared their gorgeous gardens for the first time. Today we are wrapping up the week with one last new garden but from a gardener who has shared his designs in the past. Bill Ziebarth has a colorful and creative garden in Duluth, Minnesota, that has been featured on the blog three times before (A Garden Full of Art and Flowers, Revisiting Bill’s Garden, and Garden Party at Bill’s), but today he is showcasing a new creation from a spot that was once underutilized.

My name is Bill Ziebarth, and I live in Duluth, Minnesota. I am now 78 years old and have been gardening at my present home for 28 years.

This time, I am submitting photos of my new potted garden. Previously, for 27 years, this was a blank slate. It is located at the end of my paver driveway and a retaining wall. The top of the retaining wall did have built-in planters. I got inspiration for this garden from paintings by Renoir and Monet, and the streets of Gringo Gulch in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I gathered new and vintage pots, plinths, window boxes, a vintage window, vintage table and chair, and so on. I am also including two photos of planters that will be added next year.

The first photo is the ending, so you don’t get discouraged right away.

This is the before photo.

This is the corner by my service door for the garage. A vintage Italian terra-cotta pot on a vintage plinth with SunPatiens^® (Impatiens × hybrida, annual).

Dahlias in a vintage concrete basket

This is a vintage office window. El Jardin (Spanish for “the garden”) is hand-painted by a local artist. Geraniums are in the window box.

Three vintage window boxes that I purchased at a local “junk hunt,” planted with geraniums

A view of the stairway to the backyard made out of Chilton limestone by yours truly, plus roses on the front

Looking down from the top of the wall on a vintage table and chair. Geraniums are in the window boxes and on the table.

The same view as the photo above, but you can see the red mandevilla vines in the built-in planters

This is a vintage concrete planter to be added next year. Nothing is ever finished. My friend and I built the stand out of angle iron. It will afford a view of the daylilies behind.

An English weave concrete planter to be used over by the garage-service-door end of the garden next year.

Thank you so much for sharing this new corner of your already outstanding landscape, Bill! Your use of art in your gardens has always been a highlight in your designs, and this new section is no different. I hope we are treated to photos showing more updates and additions in the future.

Did you make any additions to your garden this year? Big or small, we would love to see the garden projects you completed, new plants that thrived in your landscape, or garden renovations that upgraded your space. Follow the directions below to submit photos via email, or send me a DM on Instagram: @agirlherdogandtheroad.

We want to see YOUR garden!

Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!

To submit, send 5–10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.

Have a mobile phone? Tag your photos on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter with #FineGardening!

Do you receive the GPOD by email yet? Sign up here

Fine Gardening Recommended Products

ARS Telescoping Long Reach Pruner

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

Telescopes from 4 to 7′. Cut and Hold (160) Blades. Drop forged blades for unsurpassed long lasting sharpness. Lightweight, 2.3 lbs., for continued use. Perfectly balanced for easy pruning.

Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden, Revised and Updated Second Edition: A Natural Approach to Pest Control

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

This revised and updated edition of Jessica Walliser’s award-winning Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden offers a valuable and science-backed plan for bringing balance back to the garden. With this indispensable gardening reference—now updated with new research, insights, and voices—learn how to create a healthy, balanced, and diverse garden capable of supporting a hard-working crew of beneficial pest-eating insects and eliminate the need for synthetic chemical pesticides.

Landscape designers and homeowners are often faced with solving design problems with difficult constraints in compact urban gardens. At times we need to solve screening problems or soften hardscape surfaces in constricted areas where a planting bed may be a slim 1 to 3 feet deep. Other times there is no bed at all, and the only way to soften fences or walls is to add plants in containers. I had a tight garden space up against my neighbors’ garage wall that needed a fresh idea and greening.

The design problem

The bed in front of the wall had been stuffed with random plants for several years as I was trying to come up with the perfect tall shrub to fill in across the mundane backdrop. The planting bed was relatively shallow, tapering to 2 feet on one end. I had two garden tours scheduled to visit, and as the tour dates approached, I began to worry that I did not have time to make the space feel interesting and lush. Ideally, I wanted plants to soften the entire wall. This was also a constricted space next to the exit gate in my backyard, and I wanted something fun for people to remember on their way out of the garden. Sometimes the best solutions come while under pressure!

Why not create the illusion of a scene behind the short plants already living in the space? I was also interested in advocacy for insects and imagined a giant-sized bee or moth flying through that space. Playing with scale can throw the viewer off-balance and create surprise and delight.

What is trompe l’oeil?

The French term trompe l’oeil literally translates to “to deceive the eye.” The goal is to make a two-dimensional surface appear three-dimensional, or to create an illusion of depth and reality on a wall or ceiling. Artists have used this technique since ancient Roman times, as seen in the garden murals of the Villa of Livia. It continued through the Renaissance in works like Andrea Pozzo’s The Apotheosis of St. Ignatius, where painted ceilings mimicked expansive skies and grand architectural spaces even though the surface was flat.

Today, Swiss artist Fabian Bane Florin brings the same approach to modern buildings. He uses trompe l’oeil to catch viewers off guard, give meaning to public spaces, and connect each site to its past or its future.

How to create a photorealistic trompe l’oeil mural

Designing artwork for the outdoors can be challenging. Ideally, materials would hold up to rain, wind, sun, and freezing temperatures for many years. Taking this into account and the fact that I am not a painter, I decided to do a printed photorealistic mural. A printshop in Seattle helped me find the perfect materials for my outdoor project, where we have a lot of wet weather, some snow, and hot sun.

The garage wall surface was painted lap siding, so I needed a flat surface to print on. My choices for a canvas were marine plywood, plexiglass, foam core, polycarbonate twin wall, and aluminum sheet. I chose ¹/₈-inch-thick aluminum sheet because the surface was smooth, it was lightweight, and it did not need extra framing to keep the 4×7-foot sheet from warping.

The printing ink is used in creating outdoor signage, so it would hold up outside for many, many years. To attach it, we mounted 2×2 cedar strips onto the garage wall and fixed the panel to the strips with industrial strength Velcro. The mural could easily be removed to maintain the wall behind if needed.

What makes for the successful integration of a Trompe L’oeil mural in a garden?

Consider the house architecture and the garden style when designing imagery. My garden space has rusted steel beds, giving it a modern aesthetic, and has hardy tropical plants with a maximalist garden feel. The exposure is part shade because it is on the east side of my house and because of all the layered plantings, including palms, bananas, bamboo, and ferns, with pops of chartreuse and white in the perennials. When pulling together plant images, I searched for plants mimicking my garden style. I found an image of a loquat tree (Eriobotrya japonica, Zones 8–10), which I had growing in the garden, and other images of plants within my color palette. I wanted a black background, to make the space feel like it was receding during the day and to feel nocturnal for the moth that was the central subject.

Plant images are available for purchase on websites like Getty Images and iStock. Look for isolated images (on a black, white, or no background) if you want to combine them easily onto a common background. I purchased the moth image from nature photographer John C. Abbott and paid a fee for the right to use it in this particular project.

Photo resolution should be 300 DPI, and file sizes need to be large if you are blowing photos up, to keep the resolution high and the images crisp. The plants in this photo mural are 5,000–6,000 pixels, and the moth is 8,000–10,000 pixels. I wanted to clearly see the iridescent hairs on the moth’s wings but wanted the plants to fade back. Be careful to avoid AI-generated plants and fauna if you are aiming for a trompe l’oeil effect. I found them to be cartoonlike, and they did not read as authentic.

After plotting a design layout, I enlisted my colleague, Amanda Crowley, who has experience in graphic design, color editing, and printing. She laid out my photos in a file and prepped the design for printing. However, you do not need experience to experiment with free platforms like Canva, which will allow you to compose your design and do some simple photo editing. I checked several proofs before the image went to print to make sure colors transferred from the screen into reality.

So many opportunities for adding a unique garden mural

The possibilities for using garden photorealistic murals are vast and customizable. They can be applied to a fence panel, or used as a background for a pergola wall, a screen on a deck, or a decorative touch on a large blank house wall. Imagery can be realistic, graphic, painterly, or a combination of all three.

The important idea is to create a theme congruent with the garden and the homeowners’ interests and preferences. When designing, ask yourself what images bring you happiness and/or take you to another place? Do you prefer a funky urban vibe, or a refined old-world look? Do you want to emphasize themes in nature? Imagine a two-story foxglove going up a blank wall on the side of your house or a giant sparrow next to a tree at the top of your patio steps. A small meadow could go on for acres up against a wall with the right artwork behind it! A photorealistic mural can set the stage and deepen the theme of your garden style.

Increase the enjoyment of being in your garden by reexamining unattractive, vertical garden spaces, and see them as an opportunity to have fun with a customized, photorealistic trompe l’oeil mural. The fun is in imagining what you want and then creating it!

More garden art inspiration:

Discuss this article or ask gardening questions with a regional gardening expert on the Gardening Answers forum.

And for more Pacific Northwest regional reports, click here.

Lisa Bauer is the owner of Chartreuse Landscape Design in Seattle.

Photos, except where noted: courtesy of Lisa M. Bauer

Fine Gardening Recommended Products

The Crevice Garden: How to make the perfect home for plants from rocky places

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

A crevice garden replicates the environmental conditions of mountain tops, deserts, coastlines, and other exposed or rocky places on earth. These striking garden features provide perfect conditions for the plants native to these far-off places, bringing the cultivation of these precious gems within everybody’s reach.

SHOWA Atlas 370B Nitrile Palm Coating Gloves, Black, Medium (Pack of 12 Pairs)

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

Lightweight and close-fitting for excellent dexterity. Machine washable. Breathable back of hand to reduce perspiration. Designed for easy movement and continuous wear. Ideal for aerospace, assembly, automotive, construction, final fix, gardening, manufacturing, operating machinery, packaging, precision handling, tiling, warehousing.

Corona E-Grip Trowel

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

Handle Material: Aluminum. Handle Length: 14-1/2 in. Overall Length: 14.5 in. Head Material: Aluminum. Handle Color: Red.

A couple of months ago, I met a man named Weldon Vickery.

He was quite influential in helping save purple martins in Alabama, as well as being a County Commisioner.

However, he’s also saved an old, old variety of sugar cane known as “Blue Ribbon” cane.

I mentioned it in yesterday’s post about urban gardening in Atmore, as we have some sprouting right now next to the wall of our shop.

After a conversation at the shop with Weldon – who is 93 years old – he told me he would get me some of his cane so I could help save the variety..

It has been in his family since the Civil War War of Northern Aggression.

Check this out:

A few years ago I was given a cane that was supposedly “Blue Ribbon;” however, I was deceived.

It looked like this:

No stripes! The real Blue Ribbon has “ribbons” in it, and it’s strikingly beautiful.

Weldon told me this is a weaker variety of cane and crosses easily with other types. He also told me not to plant it anywhere near another cane or it will disappear.

I’m not sure how this could be the case, as all the cane grown here is reproduced via clonal propagation, not sexual reproduction. Yet I still planted it in a bed by itself, as far from my other cane as I could manage.

I am not arguing with someone in his 90’s who has been growing cane for most of his life!

There is a lot of sugarcane history in the South, and much of it is dying out as the old cane boilers leave us.

Maybe we can save it.

Hi GPODers!

As much as our gardens are our own personal havens, and there is always a glimmer of pride when we delight and impress our garden guests, we can’t forget that our outdoor spaces are also essential for the beneficial bugs and wildlife that we cohabitate with. Barbara Mrgich in Adams County, Pennsylvania is here to give us a great reminder of the impact our gardens can have on our ecosystems by showcasing the ways she supports the marvelous monarch. These butterflies are well-loved for their striking wing color and pattern as well as revered for their incredible ability to migrate thousands of miles every fall and spring. However, monarch populations have been in decline because of increased habitat loss and these important pollinators need more gardeners like Barbara to provide the the plants that are vital in different stages of their lifecycle.

I am a master gardener in Adams County, PA. For the past ten years, I have been studying the importance of supporting pollinators and other beneficial insects in my suburban zone 6b garden. (They keep telling us we are now zone 7a, but this year, my birdbaths froze solid two times before Thanksgiving, so I’m not buying it.)

The first step in supporting more pollinators is to plant more native plants, making sure to include host plants for specific species that are common in your area. I am devoting this post to monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), and will follow up with a few others in a future submission.

Here are a few of my photos from 2025.

If you are interested in supporting monarch butterflies, you need milkweed. Milkweed species (Asclepias spp.) is the only plant monarch caterpillars can eat. Without it, there will be no monarch butterflies. Here is the beautiful butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa, Zone 3–9). Be careful not to confuse it with butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii, Zone 5–9), which is highly invasive in our area and very much undesired!

Along with butterfly weed, you may choose swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata, Zone 3–9), another beautiful Asclepias species. Depending on the area of the country where you live, other milkweed species native to your area, may be more to your choosing. Swamp milkweed is highly attractive to many different pollinators as a nectar plant, and extremely attractive to monarchs as a host plant. This plant was covered with monarch caterpillars from July through September this year. Its blooms attracted many different species of pollinators.

Swamp milkweed feeds bees and other pollinators of all sorts. Neither Asclepias tuberosa nor Asclepias incarnata spread by rhizomes to invade your garden as common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca, Zone 3–8) is known to do. They will not take over your garden.

Monarch caterpillars first appeared on my butterfly weed in early July.

Shortly thereafter, in August, they began to appear on the swamp milkweed. (Caterpillars are dirty things. All they do is eat and poop!) One way to find them on the plant is to look for the fras (poop) directly below where they are eating.

Around the middle of August the seedpods on the swamp milkweed begin to open. This is how you know they are ripe. At this point it is easy to collect them to start plants for next year. Milkweed needs cold stratification, so I start them sometime after Christmas in milk jugs using winter seed sowing techniques (very easy).

Aphids are an unsightly pest who are especially attracted to milkweed. You definitely don’t want to spray them because any spray will also kill the caterpillars. You can wash them off with a strong spray of water, but you are also washing and drowning the eggs and caterpillars. As you can see in this photo, they don’t bother the caterpillar, just the gardener!

I always plant a big patch of zinnias, coneflowers, and tithonia right beside my milkweeds. They are favorite nectar plants of butterflies and many other pollinators. Here is a monarch butterfly on tithonia.

A monarch butterfly nectaring on echinacea. 

Thank you so much for this informative and inspiring submission, Barbara! I think we all garden with the hope of attracting and supporting some beautiful pollinators, but you go the extra mile to ensure your garden is having a big beneficial impact.

We all miss the flowers once they fade, but we will also miss the beautiful pollinators and cute creatures that visit our gardens during the warmer months. If you’ve captured photos of the various wildlife and insects that visited your garden this year, consider sharing them with Garden Photo of the Day! Follow the directions below to submit photos via email, or send me a DM on Instagram: @agirlherdogandtheroad.

We want to see YOUR garden!

Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!

To submit, send 5–10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.

Have a mobile phone? Tag your photos on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter with #FineGardening!

Do you receive the GPOD by email yet? Sign up here

Fine Gardening Recommended Products

The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

The Nature of Oaks reveals what is going on in oak trees month by month, highlighting the seasonal cycles of life, death, and renewal. From woodpeckers who collect and store hundreds of acorns for sustenance to the beauty of jewel caterpillars, Doug Tallamy illuminates and celebrates the wonders that occur right in our own backyards. He also shares practical advice about how to plant and care for an oak, along with information about the best oak species for your area.

Niteangel Natural Wooden Insect Hotel, Garden Insect House for Ladybugs, lacewings, Butterfly, Bee, Bug

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

The insect nest box provide a safe environment where garden creatures can shelter, hibernate and lay their eggs, the insect house can also keep insects from entering your warm room. The insect hotel makes it easy to find and observe fascinating creatures. the butterfly, bees and ladybugs can use this product as habitat. Dry wood and Bamboo can be home to many insects such as ladybirds and lacewings which eat aphids and help keep your plants pest-free. the insect hotel improve the growth of plants in your yard by attracting beneficial insects. The iron design on the top can keep the insect house from rainwater. Let the insect house have a longer useful life and make the insects more comfortable. If you only have a balcony or yard, the hanging garden shelter is ideal as it provides a choice of suitable habitats in a small area.

Bird Houses for Outside Clearance with Copper Guard, Cedar Bird House Outdoor, Bluebird Finch Swallow Wren Chickadee

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

1-1/2″ ENTRANCE HOLE SIZE: SISTERBIRD bluebird houses for outside have a properly-sized entrance hole, through this blue bird houses for outside you can attract desirable species to your bluebird house, such as Bluebird, Wren, Tree Swallow, Chickadees, etc. While this blue bird house excluding predators and unwanted occupants, for example, European starlings. HIGH-QUALITY MATERIALS: SISTERBIRD birdhouse kits for kids and adults use untreated, unpainted cedar. bluebird nesting box has a rough surface, and birdhouses for outdoors can give birds a foothold as they enter and exit the cedar bluebird house. Cedar of birdhouses for outdoors clearance also can keep out weather-related damage. SAFE HOME FOR FLEDGLINGS: SISTERBIRD Bluebird BirdHouse Box with copper predator guard around the entrance hole can help young birds against predators. These birdhouses for outdoors interior grooves, like a small ladder, help young birds leave the cedar bird houses for outside, especially swallows and bluebirds. A great birdhouses for outside clearance for creating a trail. EASY AND FUN TO ASSEMBLE: Just use a screwdriver, you can experience the thrill of working with your family to build blue bird houses, and feel the pride that comes from building a bird nesting box for little birds. You can also DIY, paint it, making blue bird box special and unique, build your own blue bird houses for outdoors. EASY TO CLEAN & REUSABLE: SISTERBIRD wooden bird houses front door opens for easy cleaning after fledglings have left. When the season is over, clean out the blue bird boxes for outside and save bluebird birdhouses for outdoors clearance for next spring.

Growing roses in the Rocky Mountain region has never been easy. We gardeners are familiar with the periods of drought, sudden cold snaps, and dry winters that zap rose vigor and leave plants resprouting from their bases. Many of us have shifted to shopping for own-root (rather than grafted) plants whenever possible; have taken up winter watering—dragging hoses to and fro as if participating in some sort of monthly, slow-motion ritual; and modified our pruning practices to account for greater and later cold damage. Often, I don’t prune substantially until mid to late May, to avoid encouraging plants to break dormancy or opening their vasculature in the event of a late hard freeze.

Still, we’ve been blessed, until recently, to have enjoyed gardens free of Japanese beetles, which prefer roses above almost all other plants (of which they eat a dizzying spread in the first place). Since their arrival in Denver over 10 years ago and Fort Collins more recently, growing tidy-looking roses has become even more difficult. And, because they are gradually spreading west, other vicinities in the Rocky Mountain region will soon have to tackle this challenge head-on.

It’s worth noting that this piece won’t cover Japanese beetle management by active control measures; it will focus on plant selection as a means of minimizing beetle damage in the rose garden. For general information on Japanese beetles and an introduction to their management, check out this resource from CSU Extension: Japanese Beetle.

Learn more: How to Get Rid of Japanese Beetles

Early Flowering Roses Get a Jump on the Competition

Roses that bloom prior to the emergence of adult Japanese beetles are among those least bothered by their presence in regional gardens. These would include many species roses (the original genetic building blocks for much of the roses we cultivate in gardens today) as well as several old garden roses (sometimes referred to as OGRs). Old garden roses emerged less through active breeding programs and more through observation and selection of superior roses in cultivation prior to the year 1867, which, not by coincidence, is the year the first hybrid tea rose was introduced.

These older roses, in many cases, also benefit from greater innate tolerance for extreme weather than newer rose groups and tend to be especially vigorous. In some native roses, like thornless wild rose (Rosa blanda, Zones 3–7) and Woods’ rose (Rosa woodsii, Zones 3–8), which some now lump with blanda, suckering can be extensive. These plants are best kept to the back forty. Most others in this early flowering group don’t sucker, or sucker modestly, developing into what looks like a shrub. Regardless of their habit, many roses in this group make superb wildlife plants, providing good cover thanks to their dense and thorny stems, plentiful foliage, and hips. Below is a list of suggested species and OGR roses for “beating the beetle”; these plants will complete most of their bloom before adult beetles emerge or after they die off for the year, and so are less susceptible to beetle feeding.

Thornless wild rose and Woods’ rose

Rosa blanda and Rosa woodsii

• Native, wild roses by various names
• Single, fragrant, soft pink flowers with yellow centers
• R. blanda reaches 3 to 6 feet tall and R. woodsii grows half as high; both grow into wide-forming, loose colonies in favorable sites

White rose of York

Rosa × alba ‘Semi-Plena’

• Zones 4–9
• 6 to 9 feet high and half as wide; irregular to vase shape
• Semi-double white flowers

Autumn Damask rose

Rosa × damascena nothovar. semperflorens

• Zones 4–9
• 4 to 6 feet tall and tend to be narrower
• Double pink flowers with strong fragrance
• The only rose in this list that routinely flowers in the spring and fall, conveniently taking a pause during the midsummer beetle onslaught)

Foetida rose varieties:

Austrian copper (Rosa foetida ‘Bicolor’)

• Zones 3–9
• Up to 6 feet high and wide, some suckering
• Unique combination of mostly rusty orange/copper, single blooms with branches of all yellow flowers intermingled, both colors lightly fragrant

Persian Yellow (Rosa foetida persiana)

• Zones 4–9
• Up to 6 feet high and wide; upright to arching form with some suckering
• Double, lightly fragrant, bright yellow flowers
• Especially drought tolerant

Harison’s Yellow (Rosa x harisonii ‘Harison’s Yellow’)

• Zones 3–9
• Up to 6 feet high and wide; upright to arching form with some suckering
• Semi-double, lightly fragrant, bright yellow flowers
• Especially drought tolerant

French roses

Rosa gallica

• Zones 4–9
• 3 to 4 feet tall and wide, suckering slightly
• Semi-double to double, extra-fragrant, white to pink flowers
• The cultivar ‘Officinalis’ is known as the apothecary rose, which is among the easiest to find, bearing extra-fragrant, semi-double pink flowers

Redleaf rose

Rosa glauca (formerly R. rubrifolia)

• Zones 3–9
• 4 to 8 feet high and wide; elegant but substantial plants with an arching vase shape
• Single, bicolor flowers with pink petal edges and white centers, though no fragrance
• Striking blue-purple foliage and persistent orange hips make this shrub a superb garden accent or contrast piece, though it can self-sow on some sites

Burnet rose

Rosa spinosissima (formerly R. pimpinellifolia)

• Zones 3–9
• 4 to 6 feet tall and wide; upright or arching form with moderate suckering
• Single, pure white, lightly fragrant flowers; unusual glossy black hips; and distinctive, petite leaves

Long-blooming options with resistance

Still, not everybody’s satisfied to have most of their roses bloomed out by the end of June. Experts suspect a degree of susceptibility to Japanese beetle feeding in roses is genetic, and so preliminary work has been done by entomologists in Colorado to assess beetle-feeding preference by rose cultivar. A 2016/2017 study by Schreiner et. al of Colorado State University’s Cranshaw Lab resulted in recommended cultivar lists, including perpetual roses, that can be found here: Cranshaw Rose Study.

To compile information for this piece, I also spoke with a few rose-growing horticulturists in my network, including Mike Kintgen of Denver Botanic Gardens, and Derek von Drehle, horticulturist responsible for the Longmont Memorial Rose Garden. The latter garden represents a collection of over 700 individual rose plants made up of 130 taxa in northern Colorado, making it a great place to get a quick read on beetle susceptibility by cultivar for many different roses.

Derek mentioned that, interestingly, ‘Lady Elsie May’ (Rosa ‘ANGelsie’, Zones 5–9), listed as a plant most heavily fed on in the Schreiner study, is among the plants most lightly fed on in Longmont’s Rose Garden, highlighting the impact of environment and year in influencing beetle feeding pressures year-to-year and site-to-site. Still, Derek also indicated that two of the roses listed as least fed-upon in the Schreiner study are also least fed upon in the Longmont collection: Rainbow Sorbet™ (Rosa ‘Baiprez’, Zones 5–9), a shrubby floribunda with an ombré, color-changing bloom, and French Lace™ (Rosa ‘JAClace’, Zones 6–10), a cream-flowered floribunda. Both are perpetuals, blooming in flushes all season long with much-less-than-average beetle interest, so might be “best bets” if you are looking for long-blooming roses with less appeal to beetles.

Rose maintenance makes a difference

Maintaining vigorous plants through best practices like deep waterings, proper pruning and soil care, and thoughtful site selection is advisable too. Appropriate plant maintenance minimizes stress that predisposes plants to insect feeding of all kinds in the first place.

Finally, as far as actively controlling the beetles, you can also pick or knock adults off your plants first thing in the morning before temperatures warm up. Do so into a bucket of soapy water; as seems obnoxiously appropriate for such a pest, Japanese beetles float on plain water. Once the day has warmed, the beetles will fly off before you can get them into the bucket.

Regardless of whether you choose to hand-remove beetles or not, they will likely continue to show up from mid-June to late August, assuming they’ve reached your area. While they will feed lightly on most roses out of bloom, the damage is nothing compared to what can happen to a blooming plant. So planting early flowering OGRs and species roses is the most surefire way to minimize beetle feeding in your rose garden.

Learn more about growing roses:

Discuss this article or ask gardening questions with a regional gardening expert on the Gardening Answers forum.

And for more Mountain West regional reports, click here.

Bryan Fischer lives and gardens at the intersection of the Great Plains and the Rockies. He is a horticulturist and the curator of plant collections for a local botanic garden.

Fine Gardening Recommended Products

ARS Telescoping Long Reach Pruner

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

Telescopes from 4 to 7′. Cut and Hold (160) Blades. Drop forged blades for unsurpassed long lasting sharpness. Lightweight, 2.3 lbs., for continued use. Perfectly balanced for easy pruning.

Chapin International 10509 Upside-Down Trigger Sprayer

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

CLEAN & DISINFECT: made to handle disinfectants and mild bleach solutions. DESIGNED TO CLEAN: adjustable nozzle for fine to coarse spray. 32-OUNCE TANK: translucent, chemical-resistant poly. COMFORT: ergonomic handle and sprays upside down to reach awkward areas.

Pruning Simplified: A Step-by-Step Guide to 50 Popular Trees and Shrubs

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

Pruning Simplified shows you exactly how to do it. This must-have guide offers expert advice on the best tools for the job, specific details on when to prune, and clear instructions on how to prune. Profiles of the 50 most popular trees and shrubs—including azaleas, camellias, clematis, hydrangeas, and more—include illustrated, easy-to-follow instructions that will ensure you make the right cut the first time.

Since we bought Atmore Farm & Garden, we haven’t had time to do much gardening at home.

Yet I’m at the shop almost every day, and there are little bits of time here and there. And we have seeds and transplants.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been planting here and there. Some in pots, and some in the ground along the front wall of the store.

One of the first things we planted was the decorative planter box the town of Atmore usually plants out front.

One of my sons and I planted marigolds and a rosemary, then sprinkled lettuce seeds around the rest of the planter.

We got a good bit of lettuce from that planter! Enough for many salads.

Yet now the cold is creeping in, so yesterday I did a big final cutting of lettuce to give to my in-laws, then replanted it – this time with yellow granex short-day onions from the bundles Bonnie Seed sells out front.

They should look great in a few weeks. A local gardener came in the other day and said this variety outperformed all the other onions he ever grew, quickly making softball-sized onions.

That would be great, as we’ve not had much luck here with bulbing onions.

The next thing we planted was a few nursery pots of vegetables.

I’m going to cut some of that broccoli for dinner tonight.

You can tell it’s not sprayed because it looks so ugly.

These cabbages look pretty, though:

When they head up, we’ll make some purple sauerkraut.

Some of the pots in the upper picture were just planted. We are clearing out all our transplants right now so I’ve been sticking them here and there. If it’s a mild winter they’ll do okay.

The front wall of the shop is a south-facing wall.

You can see some little sugarcane leaves popping up about half-way back. They are honest-to-goodness “Blue Ribbon” cane, a Civil-War era variety with interesting markings. I’ll write more on those soon.

The rest of the planted is filled with cabbage, kale, broccoli and collards. The ones closer to the camera were planted first, hence the size difference.

I think the microclimate of this wall will help these grow well. In the future, I’d like to fix the wonky logs and plant a somewhat more tropical perennial garden here. I bet it’s a solid zone 9 at least, thanks to the wall and the parking lot. We could likely put in a lemon, a kumquat and maybe even a blood orange, so long as we put them flat up against the wall. We might even get away with a Surinam cherry.

I am a little concerned about lead in the soil next to the building; however, I read that lead contamination is really only a problem with root crops. We’ll stick to things that produce over above the ground and hope all turns out okay.

I really want to plant cassava against that wall, but I will try to restrain myself…