Purple Coneflower
$14.00The workhorse of a pollinator border. Flowers for two months and feeds goldfinches all winter.
Common Ninebark
Physocarpus opulifolius
$42.00#3 pot24 on the bench
The shrub we named the place after. Nearly unkillable, and the bark peels in winter.
- ONTARIO NATIVE
- FEEDS POLLINATORS
- DEER RESISTANT
We don't sell online — plants travel badly and we'd rather you saw what you're buying. Ring 705-555-0126 and we'll hold it at the till for 48 hours.
About this plant
If you want one shrub that will survive whatever Simcoe County does to it, this is the one. Native from here to the prairies, indifferent to soil type, and it flowers on a plant nobody has watered in three years.
The common name comes from the bark, which shreds in papery layers on older stems — supposedly nine of them. It is the reason a ninebark looks like something in February when everything else looks like sticks.
White flower clusters in late May, red seed heads through summer, and cultivars in everything from lime to near-black foliage. Cut a third of the oldest stems to the ground each spring and it will stay dense rather than turning into a leggy thicket.
Looking after it
- Water
- Weekly the first season, then rainfall only
- Soil
- Anything but permanently wet
- Pruning
- Remove a third of the oldest stems in early spring
- Feeding
- Not required; compost mulch in spring is plenty
Plant it with
Little Bluestem
$16.00Blue-green in summer, copper and mahogany from September until you cut it down in April.
Serviceberry
$145.00A small native tree that earns its space four times a year — and the berries are worth eating.