THE MIDWESTERN NATIVE GARDEN
THE MIDWESTERN
NATIVE GARDEN
native alternatives to
nonnative flowers and plants
AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE
Charlotte Adelman
and Bernard L. Schwartz
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS
Other Books by the Authors
Charlotte Adelman, WBAI—The First 75 Years
Charlotte Adelman and Bernard Schwartz, Prairie Directory of North America—The United States and Canada
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
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18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 5 4 3 2 1
Cover illustration: Monarch butterfly on purple coneflower in authors’ backyard. Photograph by Bernard L. Schwartz.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Adelman, Charlotte, 1937–
The Midwestern native garden : native alternatives to nonnative flowers and plants :
an illustrated guide / Charlotte Adelman and Bernard L. Schwartz.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8214-1937-3 (pb : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8214-4356-9 (electronic)
1. Endemic plants—Middle West. I. Schwartz, Bernard L., 1933– II. Title. III. Title:
Native alternatives to nonnative flowers and plants.
QK128.A34 2011
635.9'510978—dc22
2010054474
CONTENTS
Selected Bibliography and Resources
Illustration and Photography Credits
PREFACE
For as long as I can remember, I have loved wildflowers. Having a wonderfully large backyard enabled my husband and me to create large, colorful beds of flowers. Many happy evenings were spent devouring catalogs as ambitious color-coordinated schemes danced in my head. I ordered, and we planted, daffodils, tulips, daylilies, peonies, hostas, and ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum. And because these “old favorites” decorated the yards of most of our neighbors and constituted the inventory of most local and national nurseries, we assumed these were the right ornamentals to plant. Because we love birds, we lined our borders with berry- and fruit-producing trees and shrubs. Later, to our horror, we discovered that most of our well-meaning plant choices were not native to North America and that some were invasive pests. We realized we had made choices without first getting good information.
While I was walking with my dog one afternoon, I spied a brilliant yellow goldfinch extracting a seed from the iridescent center of a purple coneflower. Belatedly, it dawned on me that flower seeds, not only the fruits, provide birds with food. During another walk in a local park, I noticed that the hostas and daylilies from China did not attract much of anything. In contrast, and to my astonishment, numerous butterflies, skippers, and bees surrounded the native blackeyed Susans, coneflowers, and blazing stars. This produced another epiphany: I could transform my garden of colorful nonnative flowers into a garden of colorful native flowers that welcomes butterflies, other beneficial and beautiful insects, and birds. From these experiences, my gardening ideas evolved. Before long, the backyard lawn was removed, the nonnative ornamentals were put on the compost heap, and a local prairie expert was hired to help me create a backyard urban prairie/savanna.
These days, I stroll on a woodchip path through a fragrant, colorful kaleidoscope of native sedges, grasses,
