More Native Flowers and Ground Covers (from our archive)
April 2023: Mayflower (aka trailing arbutus), Epigaea repens.
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Previous generations of New Englanders, including poets Emily Dickinson and John Greenleaf Whitter, cherished the mayflower as one of the first wildflowers to bloom in spring. Nowadays, when we stud our gardens with (non-native) daffodils and forsythia for early spring color, it’s easy to overlook the subtle charms of this diminutive plant. As Dickinson observed, it is “covert in April / candid in May….” Whittier imagined the Pilgrims’ joy as they “saw the blossoms peer / Above the brown leaves….” Although we have no documentation of how the Pilgrims regarded this North American species, it would have been novel to them. (Their ship was named after the May-flowering English hawthorn.) |
Mayflower in its covert phase |
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Epigaea repens has been the Massachusetts state flower since 1918 and protected as an endangered species since 1925. Mayflower is native throughout most of the United States east of the Mississippi River, but it is always rare. It is sensitive to logging, grazing and other disturbances and almost impossible to transplant and cultivate. Indeed, the Virginia Native Wildflower Society cautions against purchasing trailing arbutus from a nursery, “because in all likelihood plants for sale are from the wild and will perish in any event.” What
mayflower likes best is undisturbed ground under an open pine canopy
where it will not be smothered by fallen leaves. If you find mayflower
as you walk in the woods, regard it reverently and let it be. |
Mayflower in its candid phase |
March 2023: Bearberry, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi.
This
evergreen native ground cover, no more than a foot tall, thrives in the
harsh conditions found in arctic regions, windswept coasts and alpine
environments. It produces white and pink blossoms in spring that mature
into red berries, and its green leaves turn reddish bronze in the
fall. As its common and Latin names imply, bears love to eat its
berries, but smaller mammals, as well as birds, find them tasty, too.
You can find it growing in the wild on the Marconi site in Wellfleet and
on the Bearberry Hill trail in Truro.
Bearberry is happiest in full sunlight and out from under trees. In the right conditions, it will spread by runners to cover several square feet. William Cullina, in his guide to Native Trees, Shrubs and Vines, calls bearberry “one of our finest groundcovers” but highlights its “intolerance for all but poor, acid sand.” However, for Cape Cod gardeners, this is a feature, not a bug. As the Native Plant Trust advises, “This plant thrives on neglect.”
March Activity: If you are tempted to reduce some of your lawn to provide more room for native plantings, an easy way to get started is to lay cardboard or thick layers of newspaper on the area you’d like to convert. Wet the cardboard or newspaper down and then cover it with a few inches of leaf or bark mulch. After several weeks, it will be relatively easy to dig through the sodden cardboard and decomposing grass to plant the native perennials, shrubs or groundcovers that have piqued your interest.