Nothing Compares to Natives
Highlights from a visit to Hillwood Gardens
We’re in the summer doldrums and my own garden’s looking a tad peaked. I'm working on plans to ensure a better late-summer showing next year. (Note to self: that bed that looked so sunny in February is in fact surrounded by trees. With leaves.) Meanwhile, for a booster shot of inspiration, I paid a visit to Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens in next-door DC.
Hillwood is the former estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, an heir to the Post Cereal fortune. You may have heard of Marjorie’s other little property down in Florida: Mar-A-Lago? She apparently had more money than she knew what to do with, so in addition to building fancy estates, she collected priceless baubles like Fabergé eggs. I’m not particularly interested in the estate’s buildings or their gilded contents – a little too “let them eat cake” for my taste – but I do enjoy strolling the lovely gardens.
Hillwood’s 13 acres are grounded in a horticultural sensibility that prized ornamentation and the collection and display of exotica. In recent years, though, there's been an effort to address ecological concerns by removing invasive plants and adding more indigenous species, including the creation of a discrete native garden dedicated to educating the public on biodiversity, wildlife habitat and sustainable gardening techniques. (This garden is not only discrete, it’s discreet – as in, hidden behind the parking lot. More on that below.)
Here are a few of my favorite late-July native finds at Hillwood.
As hoped, I did draw inspiration from my Hillwood visit. Among other things, I’m definitely going to add some oakleaf hydrangeas to my decidedly partly-shady yard.
But I also came away with a big fat wish: that influential institutions like Hillwood would do far more to showcase indigenous species and sustainable landscaping practices. Stop tinkering at the margins. Stop checking the “environmental stewardship” box by creating out-of-the-way native plant ghettos. Instead, take natives mainstream in your landscapes and show the rest of us what’s possible. Go big. Native plants are every bit as beautiful as their non-native peers AND they’re critical to the health of our planet. There’s really no comparison.
As we design and tend our own gardens, we face many of the same choices as Hillwood’s landscapers. Are we concerned only with esthetics, or can we combine beauty and functionality? As Braiding Sweetgrass author Robin Wall Kimmerer points out, “You don’t have to be complicit in our culture of destruction.” Why not choose to be constructive?
May Sinéad O'Connor rest in peace.
If you live in the DC vicinity and could use assistance with sustainable landscaping, visit Bees’ Knees Design. I’d be happy to help you.
The longer I live here, the more I realize the care (or possibly not...) the previous inhabitants took to plant medicine plants and encourage natives- with only a few not-at-all awful exceptions. My lazy, 'take care and good luck' attitude about my gardens is perhaps the best thing to happen here. By that I mean; the things that will grow will grow and so long as I don't let the whole place become a northern jungle of the evil monster, bittersweet, the colors and growth evolve pretty well. Maybe I'll tend and weed...later... maybe (I often find that if I wait long enough, those weeds become lovely blossoms- showing how much I do Not know about plants and flowers! LOL). It's hard enough just fighting the bittersweet, honestly.
Nice article, and great garden photos! keep up the good work! Planted my native garden three years ago, and was out in the yard drinking a cold PBR pulling weeds, when blamo there was Rattle Snake Master year three! I was so excited!