3 Impossible Sites, 3 Native Plant Gardens

Through some kind of perverse tenacity, I tend to gravitate towards impossible sites for planting native plant habitat gardens. But it’s more than willful single-mindedness: I think these are the sites that we desperately need to figure out, especially as urbanization and climate change create difficult conditions everywhere.

My first impossible site was at Harbourfront, on Toronto’s lakeshore, where I was invited, in the early 2000s, to create a garden as part of their Artists Gardens program. I was offered three raised beds, in a building site in a high pedestrian traffic area, in a wind-tunnel, with no water access other than the marina’s murky waters. The soil in the beds was about 6 inches deep, if that.

The site at Harbourfront where I was invited to create a garden, as part of the Artists Gardens series.

I planted a native plant meadow, and despite the challenges, it flourished. I also planted a bed of heritage vegetables and invited people to harvest seeds and food. Weirdly, I discovered that when people are explicitly invited to take things, they rarely do!

The raised bed meadow at my Harbourfront Artists Garden.

My second impossible site was the Portland Place Pollinator Patch, on a busy street in downtown Toronto, surrounded by condos.

The site of the Portland Place Pollinator Patch prior to planting.

We planted a native plant pollinator garden that suffers from every problem imaginable: Salt inundation from the sidewalk in winter. Dogs digging, urinating and defecating, despite the “no dogs please” signage. Soil that has more in common with concrete than with a growing medium. No source of water. Wind tunnel effects from the high buildings. Mulch that won’t stay put in the wind. Late-night stomping from partiers. And yet, many of the native plants have flourished.

The Portland Place Pollinator Patch in its first year of planting.

My third impossible site is a public boulevard in the west end of Toronto that is City-owned but totally unmaintained. In a sea of pernicious weeds and black locust tree volunteers, I have planted three beds for my Sedges Instead project. Digging a trowel into this compacted “soil” gave me the worst blister I’ve ever had.

And yet the native plants, mainly sedges, interspersed with some native pollinator plants, are thriving, thanks to their inherent toughness and the watering that neighbours across the street are kind enough to do.

One of the Sedges Instead beds.

I’m beginning to wonder if any site is truly impossible!

Community Help

One of the most gratifying things about my Sedges Instead project is the way that neighbours have become involved.

Baillie, who first told me about this boulevard and how perfect it would be for Sedges Instead, offered me the use of her outdoor tap, about 100 feet away. Lugging watering cans takes some time, but I’m grateful, as are the young seedlings.

Florinda, who lives right across the street from the Sedges Instead project and who has a gorgeous flower garden, drags her hose to the sidewalk whenever she sees me, and together we shower the sedge beds from across the street—causing a few people in cars to wonder why it’s “raining” as they pass.

Another fellow came over with a packet of Heavenly Blue Morning Glory seeds and planted them in a concrete planter on the wall.

Mike, who lives a block away, was curious about who to speak with at the City so he could do something similar.

Sahar, who just moved into a house on the street, would like to adopt a section of the boulevard for vegetable growing.

I’m hopeful that by next year, this neglected boulevard will be full of people tending public plantings!

The boulevard in May, prior to creating the Sedges Instead beds.

Suggested Sedges

It amazes me that native sedges aren’t more widely known and planted in gardens. What’s not to love?!

Little fountains of cascading grass-like foliage, so tidy. Zero effort required for them to flourish. Super habitat value, hosting the larvae of various butterflies and moths, and supporting many beneficial insects.

The sedge revolution requires that we all start asking for these wonderful plants at nurseries!

Here are a few of my favourites.

Bristle-leaved sedge (Carex eburnea)

Bristle-leaved sedge (Carex eburnea)

Height: 6 in to 12 in

Flowers: greenish white

Blooming period: spring

Exposure: shade to sun

Soil: regular

Bristle-leaved sedge is a fantastic addition to the woodland garden. Growing is tidy, rounded clumps, with thin, narrow leaves, it looks great when planted in masses along the woodland border. The flowers are small, on spikes, as are the seedheads, which persist through winter and produce tiny black seeds.

Plantain-leaved sedge (Carex plantaginea)

Plantain-leaved sedge (Carex plantaginea)

Height: 1 ft

Flowers: yellowish green

Blooming period: mid-spring

Exposure: shade to partial shade

Soil: regular to moist

Specialist pollinator interactions: larval host for Appalachian brown butterfly

If you’re looking for a low-growing, grass-like plant as a groundcover in shade, this perennial, clump-forming sedge is an excellent choice. Its leaves are unusually wide for a sedge, with distinctive veins, and are often evergreen, persisting over winter. Other attractive features are the reddish-purple sheaths and the small but distinctive flowers in mid-spring, which stand erect, emerging above the leaves. Wind-pollinated, the plant spreads vegetatively.

Fox Sedge (Carex vulpinoidea)

Fox sedge (Carex vulpinoidea)

Height: 1.5 ft to 3.5 ft

Flowers: green to golden and brown

Blooming period: late spring to early summer

Exposure: sun to partial sun

Soil: moist to wet

Specialist pollinator interactions: larval host for broad-winged skipper, mulberry skipper, two-spotted skipper, black dash, dion skipper, duke’s skipper, eyed brown, grass-miner moth, tufted sedge moth

 Like many sedges, this one requires moist conditions and is grown in gardens mainly for its foliage, which form dense tufts of narrow leaves. Useful in rain gardens, where it tolerates flooding, it can spread to form colonies.

Pennsylvania Sedge (Carex pensylvanica)

Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica)

Height: 6 in to 1 ft

Flowers: creamy green

Blooming period: mid- to late spring

Exposure: shade to sun

Soil: regular to dry; drought tolerant

Specialist pollinator interactions: larval host for Elachista argentosa moth, Elachista madarellamoth

A great choice for dry, shady conditions, this clump-forming perennial sedge is low-growing, forms attractive, arching tufts, and doesn’t take any work to maintain. It takes on a purplish cast when in bloom, and is cross-pollinated by wind, also producing clonal colonies. It does best in humus-rich soil high in organic matter.

More sedge profiles to come in a future post!

Hello Sedges

The three Sedges Instead beds are now planted on a neglected public boulevard in the west end of Toronto (near Lansdowne and Dundas)! The native sedges I’ve included are Plantain-leaved Sedge (Carex plantaginea), Pennsylvania Sedge (Carex pensylvanica), Graceful Sedge (Carex gracilis), and Fox Sedge (Carex vulpinoidea).

I’ve interspersed some native wildflowers as well. Whenever passersby see me working and stop to talk, they always say that they hope there will be flowers. And they always lament the fact that the City doesn’t maintain the boulevard!

Pre-Planting Joy

Is there anything better than the feeling you get when the beds are all prepared and ready for planting?

Everything feels full of opportunity and promise. And weed-free!

The long view

I am planting this public boulevard site with native sedges and some native flowers with the hope of inspiring others to tend to such spaces and create habitat.

Sedges Instead

I’ve long wanted to do a demonstration planting of native sedges—gorgeous, totally undervalued plants—as a low-maintenance alternative to lawns. So when an opportunity for a public space arose, I jumped at the chance.

Say hello to a boulevard in the west end of Toronto that is now home to the project Sedges Instead!

I solarized this bed for about a month and a half to suppress the abundant weed crop prior to planting.

The first small bed has now been planted with awl-fruited sedges (Carex stipata). Thank you to Lara Mrosovsky (of Miinikaan Innovation & Design) and Ryan Godfrey (of World Wildlife Fund—Canada) for rescuing these plants and passing them along.

Seeing the awl-fruited sedges sway in the wind, with their graceful blades, is a delight.

Awl-fruited sedge in the small, unsolarized bed to which I added new soil.

A bigger bed is being solarized in preparation for a mid-summer planting of many more great sedges and native pollinator plants!

The beds will be a “seed orchard” and the seeds will be collected for distribution to community projects and growers in order to propagate more sedges and make them available for plantings. Not only are sedges rare in gardens, but they’re also rare in the nursery trade. This project is a small part of trying to encourage the growing of sedges! Especially if you’re looking for an incredibly low-maintenance and ecologically valuable alternative to lawns.

(Many thanks to WWF-Canada and the Pollinator Partnership for supporting this volunteer project.)

Urban Neglect as Opportunity

Cities are full of public spaces that are virtually abandoned, with no one tending to them, caring for them, giving them the love they deserve, taking advantage of the opportunities they offer.

This is the state of the public boulevard where I’ve planted the Sedges Instead beds. I seem to gravitate towards impossible sites!

The soil is basically compacted concrete, low in organic matter, and full of tenacious non-native plants that provide little in the way of habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects.

The surrounding trees, non-native black locusts, spread like mad, sprouting up everywhere with their thorny protection.

I’m determined to demonstrate that this boulevard can be brought into some semblance of ecological health and community value! These places call out for tending.

At this site, I am planting native sedges, along with other flowering native plants, with the hope of inspiring others to tend neglected public spaces.