The aesthetics of gardening have changed considerably in the 30 or so years since I started gardening. Back when we bought our first house, in North Amherst, along with an established perennial bed, my only concern was having lots of beautiful flowers. I tweaked the garden, adding exotic dazzlers like expensive delphiniums and fussy roses. These seldom yielded happy results, but I kept trying.
Naturally, I was a supporter of the environmental movement, but I saw no connection between my own garden and the environment. The concept of beneficial insects was foreign to me; I knew nothing about native plants. Come fall, I’d cut everything to the ground and rake the leaves off into the woods behind the house, proud of the clean slate I’d created for the spring, when I could hit the ground running.
We are living in a different world. In a recent piece about The High Line garden in New York City, Margaret Roach wrote in her “A Way to Garden” post, that the gardeners for that park “are shifting their thinking about gardens as ecological communities rather than a collection of plants.” With environmental calamity staring us down, we garden with an eye toward the entire ecological landscape.
When it comes to plant choice, we use more native plants and shrubs that provide food and shelter for birds and insects, including pollinators such as butterflies and moths. And we’re learning how to manage and maintain our gardens in ways that minimize harm to beneficial insects through their life cycles. This means “leaving things be” at the end of the growing season and well into the spring, so that critters in the leaves and dead plant stalks can mature and hatch in place. I suspect most gardeners, like me, have a touch of control freak in their natures and can find it hard to accept that mess is good.
Climate change — a major manifestation of environmental disaster — has also changed how we garden. We are trying to respond to the unsettled and unpredictable weather patterns we’re seeing: milder winters, periods of drought followed by heavy rain events, and windier conditions. There are climate change deniers among us who joyfully point to this past frigid winter as evidence that climate change is a hoax. “There’s no global warming,” they say. But they can’t ignore the fact that certain trees, shrubs and perennials that were once happy in their gardens are struggling to survive in climate conditions they’re not accustomed to.
Dan Ziomek of Sugarloaf Gardens in Sunderland gave an informative and inspiring talk at the recent Western Massachusetts Master Gardeners’ spring symposium outlining the challenges of climate change for gardeners and offering recommendations for plants that are better able to adapt to the new climate realities. He discussed several native deciduous shrubs that tolerate a variety of soil conditions and sun exposure, including chokeberry (aronia), sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus) and summersweet (Clethra alnifolia). Ziomek also sang the praises of one of my favorites, the native oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia). It has lovely, huge ivory-colored panicles in summer, interesting exfoliating bark and red fall foliage, and can take wet or dry conditions as well as sun or shade. And judging from the bird’s nest in an oakleaf hydrangea near my front door, it’s a favorite with birds too.
Some shrubs that do well in hot, sandy conditions include sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina) and beach plum (Prunus maritima). For wetter locations, Ziomek recommended Witherod viburnum (Viburnum casinoides). This native shrub, with white flowers and pink-turning-to-dark-blue fruit, can take partial shade. Another native shrub that tolerates moist soil and partial shade is elderberry (Sambucus canadensis). According to Ziomek, its purple fruit is favored by bluebirds and thrushes.
I have noticed over the past few years that large-leaved rhododendrons are not thriving. Ziomek explained their leaves have more surface area from which moisture can be lost in dry weather, either super-hot or super-cold, so they are more vulnerable to meteorological extremes. He recommended small-leaved rhododendron (Rhododendron carolinianum) and PJM rhododendrons, which can take colder winters.
Ziomek noted that Peter J. Mezitt, who hybridized the PJM back in the 1930s and 40s, never patented the highly successful and popular shrubs because he did not believe in patenting plant life. The practice of patenting plants was just getting started back then. The Plant Patent Act was passed in 1930; the following year the first plant patent was granted to Henry F. Bosenberg for his “New Dawn” rose, a climber known for its “everblooming habit” that continues to be popular today.
Shrubs are a crucial part of the ecological community. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, an amazing resource for bird lovers, recently launched its “The Garden for Birds” project, which advocates planting more native shrubs to boost dwindling bird populations.
Even for people who don’t think they have enough room for shrubs, there are often underused spaces including around the edges of lawns. Planting a shrub border will decrease the amount of lawn — dead space, ecologically speaking — while providing valuable habitat and food for birds. Shrubs will add lovely sights and sounds to the garden, not to mention a welcome privacy screen. While you’re drawing more birds to your yard, you might want to participate in Cornell’s feeder-watch program, a satisfying citizen-science project that contributes valuable data to Cornell’s researchers.
Ziomek made clear that a lot of plant choice these days involves speculation and experimentation. We are starting to try plant species that a few years back would not have survived our winter temperatures. These climate changes are not something our gardening forefathers and mothers had to contend with. Alongside the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, with its estimate of frost-free dates, and the long-range forecast for the week ahead, I think the gardener’s planning tool kit should now include printouts of key Buddhist writings on the topics of impermanence, powerlessness and nonattachment, plus the Serenity Prayer — about knowing what we can change, what we can’t change, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Mickey Rathbun is an Amherst-based writer. Her latest book, The Real Gatsby: George Gordon Moore, A Granddaughter’s Memoir, was published in 2024 by White River Press.