Some of the Best Things in the Garden are Free

by Bill Pitts

Once I splurged on daylilies, ordering at least a half dozen different kinds, each of a different color, size and bloom time. Though Florida-bred and labeled “vigorous,” they shriveled, caught rust and eventually disappeared in the sand. Meanwhile, some old “ditch lilies” from my grandmother’s garden bloomed every spring despite infrequent watering and no fertilizer. I don’t even mulch those old daylilies, unless you count the “living mulch” of Florida betony that crept in from the neighbor’s yard.

Many gardeners consider Florida betony, Stachys floridana, a first-class weed, but I value it as a cool-season groundcover and bee plant. When the weather warms up, basket grass, Oplismenus hirtellus — also widely condemned as a weed — takes betony’s place. This daylily-betony-basket grass trio lives in harmony in the light shade of cabbage palms that were planted by birds. Sometimes a self-sown black-eyed Susan or a tropical sage joins them. I even allow Spanish needles, Bidens alba -- a weed if there ever was one — to visit. The white daisy flowers, though ragged, bring out the colors of other blooms and attract many butterflies.

So often in my garden the best plants turn out to be the free ones. The Liriope muscari ‘Evergreen Giant’ that I purchased turned yellow with crown rot and never filled in, but the old-fashioned creeping lilyturf, L. spicata, which was already growing wild on the lot, made a lush groundcover. The society garlic from the nursery struggled in the hot sand, attracted every snail in the neighborhood and exuded an unpleasant odor. When I finally yanked it, native toadflax, Linaria canadensis, popped up in its place. This wispy, yet indestructible, wildflower makes a light purple mist of delicate blooms every spring. It’s also the larval plant of the Common Buckeye, one of my favorite butterflies.

With aims of a tapestry hedge, I once purchased a dozen different kinds of evergreen shrubs, most of them natives, and planted them around the lot’s edge, except in one corner, where some Viburnum odoratissimum had been planted by a previous owner. These sweet viburnums had grown open and gnarled and seemed to be in decline. I cut them to the ground, hoping to kill them and create an excuse to plant something more interesting. Of course they came back like gangbusters and made a wall of green, despite a relaxed shearing regimen. This hedge gives us more privacy than any fence I’ll ever be able to afford, far more than any of the “interesting” shrubs I bought.

My first blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium angustifolium, has been divided so many times that the price of each plant now must come out to less than a penny. The same is true of African iris and coral honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens. The latter often roots where its tendrils touch the ground, giving me free plants, many of which now cascade from teepees all over the garden. Tropical milkweed, beach sunflowers, purple love grass, various coreopsis, gaura, Madagascar periwinkle and many others reseed themselves by the dozen or the hundred. In most cases, these volunteers are healthier and prettier than the original purchased plant. They even arrange themselves better than I ever could.

It’s true that some good plants must be bought. My ‘Apalachee’ crape myrtles and citrus on dwarfing flying dragon rootstocks are worth every penny I paid for them. I buy a tray or two of wax begonias every spring for the patio garden because nursery plants grown from seed bush out so much better than those I start from cuttings.

Other plants are liabilities, usually because they’re invasive. See the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council’s website for lists of the species to avoid (www.fleppc.org). The most expensive plants I’ve ever had the misfortune to own were the laurel oaks growing wild on our lot. These weak, short-lived, disease-ridden and extremely dangerous trees cost us, like so many Floridians, thousands to remove.

But many of the best plants in the garden truly are free — or nearly so. Appreciating them did cost me the effort of changing my ideas of gardening. I used to take the standard approach of smothering everything except what I hoped to grow with thick layers of newspaper and mulch. Now I watch what pops up instead. I try to identify every plant — a never-ending challenge — and learn all I can about each, pulling only what I know I don’t want.

I accept some cudweed, Gamochaeta pensylvanica, and pepper grass, Lepidium virginicum, because they attract so many American Lady and Checkered White butterflies. Florida petunias, fleabane and lyreleaf sage are all charming natives, so they stay. Prickly poppies I keep for their light yellow blooms and their intricate, if spiny, foliage. I don’t even object to the occasional common dayflower, Commelina diffusa. I pull globe sedge, Cyperus croceus, and many other typical lawn weeds whenever I can, though sometimes I suspect I’m being intolerant. Weed tree seedlings — camphors, cherry laurels, rain trees and the dreaded laurel oaks — get yanked without hesitation or mercy.

When I introduce new plants to the garden, I avoid the latest cultivars and search instead for old-fashioned varieties, which almost always do better for me. I never shun a plant because it is common. Some plants are passed over fences for good reason. And yet I find myself growing more and more unusual flowers. From the unidentified tazetta narcissus from my great-grandmother’s garden to the regional ecotypes of so many wildflowers planted by wind or birds, many of my plants cannot be bought. They are, as the credit card commercial says, “priceless.”

© 2012 Bill Pitts. Originally published in Florida Gardening, Feb/Mar 2012. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.