WHAT TO GROW NOW | Native Roses
Long before lush, multi-petaled hybrid teas stole the spotlight, native roses were quietly feeding birds, anchoring ecosystems, and charming gardeners with their delicate, single blooms. Known to draw bees and butterflies in like magnets, these understated natives are having a well-deserved moment in pollinator-friendly gardens. Here, a half-dozen drought-tolerant species that will flourish with little fuss or muss across most of New York state.
For coastal gardeners, salt-tolerant Virginia rose (Rosa virginiana) is a standout. It’s unbothered by sandy soil and has fragrant pink blooms appear from early to late summer, followed by brilliant rosehips, which nourish birds and add visual interest in the winter garden. Skip invasive Rosa rugosa altogether. It disrupts fragile dune ecology and crowds out the native beach plums and dune grasses wildlife depend on.
Dense and bushy, Carolina rose (Rosa carolina) has soft, light pink flowers and rarely grows taller than 36 inches high, making it ideal for small beds or city gardens. Smooth rose (Rosa blanda), a nearly thornless species with white to pale pink blooms, also flourishes in well-drained containers and stays under three feet tall. Want to create a rose arch, trellis, or fence? Try climbing prairie rose (Rosa setigera). It sends out 12- to 15-foot-long canes and has blooms in pale to deep pink, followed by bright hips.
If you have room to spare or damp soil, choose swamp rose (Rosa palustris), a graceful, arching shrub with pretty pink midsummer blooms that thrives in wet soil along streams and marshes and can reaches four to six feet. Best used in naturalized borders or larger beds, Woods’ rose (Rosa woodsii) forms loose thickets of medium pink flowers on upright canes and yields abundant winter hips.
Whatever species you choose, plant the roses now. Come spring, you’ll be glad you did.
— Monica Michael Willis
GARDEN GLOW UP
In collaboration with acclaimed designers like French architect Patrick Norguet and Spain’s estudi{H}ac, Venice-based lighting company Lodes recently released Outdoor, its inaugural garden lighting collection. A mix of bold shapes and cutting-edge functionality, the stylish line includes many standouts, from striking, mushroom-like Kinno bollards to articulated Focus spotlights.
Made of metal and outdoor fabric, Lodes’ woven Stitch lanterns come in three sizes and add gorgeous dappled light to porches and patios. Likewise, Lodes’ thin, tubular Reed stakes work beautifully when clustered rhythmically in native grasses and hedges.
JUST RIGHT
With its pretty loop handles and beaded rim, Frances Palmer’s elegant, nine-inch-tall Sabine Pot make every bouquet look like a million bucks; $550.
GARDEN BOOKSHELF
In Bird Haven Farm, author Janet Mavec looks back on her decades-long mission to re-imagine the wild and unruly landscape of the 19th-century New Jersey farm, where she and her husband settled in the 1990s. “I would gaze out the window and wonder, ‘How can I make all this all fit together,’” recalls Mavec, who recruited Spanish garden designer Fernando Caruncho to create a master plan that unified the estate’s buildings and greenspaces.
The Spanish designer envisioned the property as a medieval village with perennial-lined paths radiating from the historic stone farmhouse and new residence to the pond, vegetable garden, heirloom fruit orchards, and hay meadows. With photographs by Ngoc Minh Ngo, the volume not only traces the project’s trajectory but also offers a four-season peek into Bird Haven Farm’s fully rehabilitated landscape, now considered one of America’s finest private gardens.
Bird Haven Farm isn’t just a pretty picture book, though. Mavec is an accomplished storyteller. She touches on the farm’s history, devoting a section to the creator of the Nancy Drew series, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (aka Carolyn Keene), who owned the farm until her death in 1982. She also notes some of her signature horticultural decisions, like planting 200 native pink rhododendrons along a privacy berm to get a desired wave of color, and placing 800 boxwoods, pruned into chubby rounds, near the house and along paths to create a strong green visual belt on the property.
Mavec, a consummate entertainer, also includes seasonal menus and recipes for outdoor meals and soirees—a reminder to enjoy the garden, not just work in it; $60. — MMW