By Bryan Fischer, Curator of Plant Collections | The Gardens on Spring Creek
These days, “waterwise”, “native,” and “low-maintenance” have become more expectations than preferences for many nursery shoppers. It’s understandable; we are inundated day-in and day-out with news of an ongoing climate crisis, the decline of pollinators and other wildlife, and the uncertainty of water supplies. And, while the average nursery shopper enjoys working in their garden, they don’t want to do so more than a couple of hours a week, saving their time for the bevy of other demands in their daily lives.
At the same time, shopper preferences — paradoxically — have pushed us away from a broader and more regionally-tuned plant palette. This sounds counterintuitive, since most shoppers want to do the right thing and shop with good intent to beautify their yards while doing right by nature. But the truth is, many of the plants that do the most good (or the least bad, depending on your stance) aren’t plants that look good in the nursery. Often, they look downright bad in a pot: scraggly, leggy, or waifish, with yellowing or absent lower leaves and few or no blooms. Beside them sit lush, billowing, leafy perennial specimens, many of which sport impressive floral displays. Of course, it’s tempting to buy the plant that looks best. After all, isn’t that an indication the plant is healthy and primed to succeed in your garden?
Many of the traits that make our native and regionally-adapted plants so durable, resilient, and beautiful in our gardens make them horribly adapted to culture in a pot. Having evolved on our mineral-dominated soils of little organic matter, many natives despise the organic-based, water-retentive nursery potting mix they are typically grown in. In a pot, this can be seen as yellowing or dropping lower leaves, as well as stunted growth due to reduced air exchange or excessive moisture in the root zone. After all, many natives have adapted to receiving precipitation only periodically (sometimes as little as once a month), while nursery pots — even those with native plants — typically need watering almost daily due to their restricted volume.
In addition to the soil texture and composition preferences of our natives being at a mismatch with nursery potting mix blends, the actual size and shape of nursery pots pose issues as well. A large percentage of our natives invest a large percentage of their energy in massive root systems, especially plunging roots and tap roots that seek moisture and nutrition deep in the soil profile. They do this before putting on any substantial above-ground growth; just last year I potted up a few plants, including sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) and mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) seedlings that had less than two-inches of above ground growth but sported plunging roots that extended two to three feet long when washed. Obviously, these roots do good work for the plant, but can’t be seen when shopping and aren’t able to do their jobs properly when constrained to even a larger nursery pot, which may only be eight inches deep.
One other major factor that I have almost never heard mentioned on this topic is the fact that many exotic plants — especially hardy, garden staples — have been grown in cultivation for generations. During that time, they were repeatedly selected for their looks, not just their dispositions. In many cases, this included being selected and bred for their appearance in a pot. This isn’t true for most of our natives. Even our most rigorously bred natives of the Rockies, High Plains, and Southwest have only been worked on for the last 20 to 40 years — for example, hyssops (Agastache species), native grasses like blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), and even the extensively hybridized coral bells (genus Heuchera). Western hyssops, for example, were brand-new to the market as recently as the 1990s and have enjoyed an explosion of new cultivars in the last 15 years, many of the more recent introductions of which are stellar potted plants.
In essence, don’t write a plant off because it doesn’t look “good” on the nursery bench. And, take the time to look between the beautiful red valerian (Centranthus ruber), catmints (Nepeta x), and golden yarrow (Achillea filipendulina) for native gems and other regionally-adapted plants which may not be suited to life on a shelf. Given a chance in your garden, most will bounce back in a month or two and impress the next season and beyond with reduced water and fertilizer needs, increased utility to local critters, and a unique aesthetic element not immediately discernible on the nursery bench. And, since shopper preference drives nursery offerings, it could help to increase the spread of superb native plants offered by your local growers. You’ll find that giving those ugly plants a chance will also make your garden more interesting, increasing the diversity of plants in the space and the timing of bud break, foliar growth, bloom, and senescence, all without adding more work for you, the gardener. So, don’t assume a plant isn’t the right fit for your garden just because it doesn’t present well at the nursery; give that ugly plant a chance!