Growing a Woodland Garden…One Plant at a Time

What was to be Upstate Woodland Garden started as nothing more than a tiny never-developed lot overrun with exotic plants and littered with decades of debris. However, thanks to some sweat and sore backs, the “garden” is beginning to take shape.

Enlisting a Small Army
Many months of pains taking one-man effort to clear the site and prepare it for a new life as a native plant garden got a great boost when more than 50 hardy souls spent two consecutive Saturday mornings in September grubbing out exotics and planting natives. The effort, coordinated by Erin Knight of Upstate Forever, was “manned” by a diverse group including students from Berea High School and Furman University, Pettigru neighbors, an eclectic mix of Upstate Forever members and a critical contingent of volunteers from the Greenville County Detention Center.

Today more than a hundred small and large plants (from oak-leaf hydrangeas to dogwoods) are visible. And, with recent fall rains, are beginning to get established.

Augmenting with Plants Destined for Destruction
Thanks to the efforts of the Upstate Native Plant Society, these “purchased plants” have now been joined by several dozen “rescued” Christmas ferns. On an early October Saturday, five volunteers dug the plants up on a site scheduled to be cleared for the next phase of a municipal landfill. As Attorney Frank Holleman and leader of the rescue effort says, “The ferns aren’t particularly impressive now, because they were cut over, and then rescued and replanted. This spring, however, they will frond-up and should create the structure for the garden.”

These individuals aren’t just investing in a small open-space plot or saving a stray plant or two from being lost; rather, they are helping others to understand the beauty and potential of native plants as a more environmentally-friendly approach to landscaping.