The new garden at Dearborn House is establishing and doing well. Irrigation lines have been adjusted to support the young plants for the first season, mulch has been laid, and some plants have been staked for support as they find their way growing in their new home. The beauty of gardening with native plants is that once the young plants are established the water usage will decrease, there will be less of a need for mulch as ground covers appear, and the plants will have grown to support themselves.
Although a vast majority of the planting is done, there will be subtle alterations in the future. This Fall, a lawn alternative will be sown around the grounds to start phasing out the turf grass. The following plants can currently be found in the garden:
- Mock Orange
- Red Osier Dogwood
- Saskatoon Serviceberry
- Western Sword Fern
- Vanilla Leaf
- Evergreen Huckleberry
- Yarrow
- Red Columbine
- Maidenhair Fern
- Goatsbeard
- Nettle
- Ironwood
- Red Flowering Current
- Devils Club
- Sorrel
- Wild Strawberry
- Wild Ginger
- Kinnikinnick
- Salal
- Mahonia
- Blue Elderberry
The next big step is linking our webpage to the garden itself using signage and QR codes. Currently, there are temporary signs for plant identification. In the future, the garden will be able to be experienced by scanning a QR code that brings you here, to the healing garden webpage, where you will find the educational information on the healing capacity of each plant.