Landscaping With Native Plants Goes Mainstream

Without artifice, but full of authentic Mountain style

Written By Sandi Blake (Author's Bio)

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Shade garden created by Blake Nursery with abundantly naturalized Aspen (Populus tremuloides), Columbine (Aquilegia), Sticky Geranium (Geranium viscosissimum), and Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia). This is truly close to a no-maintenance garden, with the understanding that you are willing to “go with the flow”, i.e. it is always evolving with self sowing of seeds and thus is different from year to year. Photo courtesy Cherie Rutt, Ringo Marketing.

Low maintenance, drought tolerant, occasionally irrigated lawn south of Livingston, Montana created by Blake Nursery using a custom native grass seed mix. Grass species selection was based on soil, water, and elevation conditions. Francis Blake, is the company guru for native grass seeding. Photo courtesy Sandi Blake.

Low-growing, delightful and often overlooked Gumbo Lily, or Gumbo Evening Primrose (Oenothera caespitosa), attracts nocturnal hawk moths for pollination when flowering at sunset. Meriwether Lewis collected a specimen in Montana in July, 1806. This original plant was exhibited at Crazy Mountain Museum in Big Timber during the 2006 bicentennial celebration. Photo courtesy Sandi Blake.

Carefree beauty abounds in the Lewis & Clark Montana Native Plant Garden at Crazy Mountain Museum in Big Timber. This interpretive garden, created in 2004 for the L&C Bicentennial includes many of the plants collected by the explorers, including Blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata), Purple Prairie Clover (Dalea purpurea), Silky Lupine (Lupinus sericeus), and Golden Currant (Ribes aureum). Photo courtesy Sandi Blake.

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• Nontoxic nurturing: Native plants go hand in hand with natural gardening products. One of the finest is corn gluten meal, a natural pre-emergent herbicide used to suppress
weeds, as opposed to artificial weed barrier or chemicals. Its beauty is that it prevents weed seeds from germinating. (Unlike post-emergent herbicides, say Roundup, it does not prevent weeds that already exist.)

• Biodiversity: Native plant landscapes can be designed to attract birds and butterflies or to provide birds with shelter, food and nesting places. At the same time they provide owners with beautiful plants and endless creatureentertainment. Plus it just feels right to use plants that invite wildlife into our yard and life!

• Casual style: Native plants lend themselves to an informal style. Informal is not to say blowsy, unkempt, neglected, “anything goes.” Instead natural landscaping can be perfectly ordered — it just lacks artifice and is a true reflection of casual Montana lifestyles.

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Blake Nursery was founded in Big Timber in 1977 when Sandi and Francis Blake’s three sons were five, three and one. All five members of the family played a part in launching their business — at two Amory was fast and furious at the potting bin (he now comanages the business with his mother), and over the past 31 years the Blakes have all gotten to know a thing or two about running a retail business.

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convallaria: native or welcome in Big Sky, MT

Posted By courtney on Aug 23, 2010

Is lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis) an acceptable plant to bring to the Big Sky area? I would like to transplant some of this lovely fragrant plant beneath the evergreens on my property but hesitate to introduce it if it is not welcome. My research shows that it already grows in Montana, but perhaps not in Madison County.

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