Are there any good smaller (in height) native plants you’ve had luck with in your gardens? I am in my fourth year, and I need a few less tall plants for bordering the edge of my garden. Everything I planted seemingly grows taller than listed and ends up flopping over if not staked, blocking our walkway. The smallest plants I have are butterfly weed (the orange one), but they come in so late and then get eaten down to stalks before too long. I’m in 6b and get pretty good sun where I have spots. Thanks for any ideas.
Oh while I have you, anybody else have issues with wild lupine not flowering? The one in my less sunny bed does flower and grew(one pictured). The one in the sunnier bed is smaller and didn’t flower. I read full sun is ok but maybe not?
by Torrential_Rainbow
14 Comments
6b where fam?
A short spring bloomer,Erigeron pulchellu (Robin’s plantain) is a nice, short flower that forms a ground cover. Does best in partial sun and is pretty adaptable to different soil types.
Symphyotrichum oblongifolium, aromatic aster is a great fall bloomer that stays relatively short and loves full sun.
Have you considered any of our great sedges and/or grasses? Great fillers, interesting textures, and hosts to many insects.
Mt Cuba just completed a great trial of many sedge species. Worth a read, along with their other trials! https://mtcubacenter.org/trials/carex-for-the-mid-atlantic-region/
Golden alexander is pretty low, starts blooming early and flowers through most of the growing season. We just planted 4 in April, and placed them along our garden border by a path. Also come flower and aster are great and should be under 3ft (in most cases).
Violets! Wild strawberry. My black eyed Susan’s are in low clusters. Bleeding hearts. Wild ginger.
I got some Phlox subulata this year for the front of my garden. Makes a carpet of pink/purple flowers in early spring, and might be evergreen in your zone.
Fringed bleeding heart, nodding onion, wild petunia, blue star (amsonia), wild geranium, coral bells are great low growers. Confirm for your area, I’m in 7b.
Violets, wild strawberry, bradbury’s Monarda, various sedges, Jacobs’s ladder, prairie smoke, Virginia Waterleaf (spreader), wild hyacinth, I could go on ha. Choice depends on conditions.
Native Lupinus perennis thrives in dry sandy soils. Many gardeners struggle with it because their soils are too “good” – loamy, wet, high organic matter, etc.
Phlox stolonifera, phlox divaricata, tiarella, fragaria virginiana, solidago golden fleece, packera aurea, and hairy penstemon, and geranium maculatum are the smaller plants in my garden. Aquilegia canadensis is also fairly small in my garden, but I have seen it get much bigger elsewhere. Spiderwort is short, but it’s pretty floppy.
Neighbors use little bluestem as a short plant up front. Flops a bit in fall.
Prairie smoke and prairie dropseed grass are two that I would highly recommend that haven’t been mentioned.
Canada ginger
ground covers for borders or maybe some columbine
I’m in 6a. Coreopsis lanceolata, Penstemon hirsutus, and nodding onion are my part/full sun border plants! I’ve read that Penstemon hirsutus will do well with shade but that’s not been the case for me. In shade I have wild geranium and wild ginger, tho the ginger is very slow to multiply. Bradbury monarda has also been nice though those have started fading after 2 years in my garden. Violets are also a nice spreader though when the summers get dry and hot they tend to die back so I prefer them as a green mulch and not as a border plant.
My neighbor is replacing his hell strip area with pussytoes (full sun and crappy soil) and it looks great. I believe it’s Antennaria plantaginifolia. Very short flowers in the spring and the rest of the year it’s a gray/green ground cover.
I had wild columbine and golden Alexander’s in the border but they both got wayyy taller than I’d anticipated so I had to move them back. Beautiful but more like 3 ft.
So many good ideas in this post, I’m saving it!
My lupine (seeded in a mostly shaded spot against the house 3 summers ago when I was young and naive) finally bloomed this year. Soil is fine and silty, I try not to water it much as it’s already in a shadier damper spot than it would probably prefer. Also curious if I can move it!
A different approach for the floppers- have you tried doing a Chelsea Chop on any of them?
Green and gold has been an awesome low grower for me here in MD 7a. It’s gotten (at most) 6 inches tall.