Consider The Understory In Your Garden

Flowers are fantastic, but, please don't forget to include native shrubs and small trees when designing or improving your garden.

You can't beat them for wildlife value. Not only do they provide food, nesting and shelter for mammals and birds, they are also host plants for a variety of insects. Insects that are a primary food source for birds, bats, small mammals, amphibians and even other insects that you want in your garden. They are essential if you want to garden for wildlife.

Slipper Bark Elm Spring and Fall

 My own garden came with a canopy of Shagbark Hickory, Elms (American and Slippery Bark) and a variety of Oak trees all growing in a weedy lawn with absolutely no understory.

Hydrangea arborecens

Once I figured out that the conditions in my garden~soil, sun, moisture~most resembled the woodlands that are adjacent to cedar glades, one of the first thing I had to do was to plant an appropriate understory of native shrubs and wildflowers to create a healthy and diverse ecosystem.

Spicebush

 Finding those understory shrubs and small trees has been and still is an adventure. Not just any Middle Tennessee native will grow in the shallow, clay soil that is wet all winter and dry all summer...It is still trial and error, there have been many plant deaths! The ones that thrive are real troopers~Honorary members of the Rough and Tumble Wildflower Club. They meet my criteria to a T~They are native, they provide for pollinators and other critters and they are lovely to look at.  You can't ask for more in a plant.

Viburnum rufidulum aka Rusty Blackhaw

Supporting Players in the garden~Each has many wildlife visitors

Lindera benzoin
Hypricum frondosum
Hydrangea arborecens sps and cultivars 'Ryan Gainey' White 'Dome'
Viburnum rufidulum 
Hydrangea quercifolia
Itea virginica
Aronia arbutifolia
Euonymous americana

Hamamelis vernalis
Hamamelis virginica
Rhododendron periclymenoides (Pinxterbloom Azalea)
Juniperus virginica 'Grey Owl'

Cotinus 'Grace' and Cercis canadensis

Cotinus 'Grace'
Cercis canadensis
Cornus florida
Cornus drummondii   

Amelanchier laevis

Amelancer laevis
Ostrya virginica
Neviusia alabamensis
Dirca palustris
Croton alabamensis 
Rhus aromatica
 
      

My little ecosystem is a hybrid crossing of a cedar glade woodland,  with Central Basin natives and the unique characteristics of this place I call Clay and Limestone. There's no way C and L would ever be confused with a naturally occurring ecosystem, it's an artificial construct that I weed (occasionally),  prune, add and subtract plants, and delight and despair over. 

Hypericum frondosum

The critters seem pretty happy and that makes this gardener happy.
xoxogail


PS. Want to learn more about the wildlife value of trees, shrubs and forbs?  Check out Doug Tallamy's research on Lepidopteran Use of Native & Alien Ornamental Plants and do a web search using the phrase "wildlife value of native trees and shrubs".



Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.