Botanical Backbones: The Plants that Bind

Somehow, we've made it to the last week of spring, even though it's felt like true summer for a while now.   Fruit has begun to appear on shrubs and trees. Things have fully leafed out, unless they bit the dust during the bout of random mid-spring freezes. Some things seem to be absolutely thriving this season, despite the snow, drought, high winds, or random heat waves followed by random overnight freezes. These are the plants that seem to continue carving a niche out for themselves as the weathered warriors of the Anthropocenic Hellscape we inhabit.

It was tough picking one plant to work with this week after having visited three different garden spaces over the course of the last six days. I noted the undeniably prolific plants that seemed to keep coming up across palettes and cultural needs - from Detroit to the Bronx to West(ish) Philly and right back here in central NJ, there seems to be a defined group of no-BS native plants that work everywhere from the Great Lakes to the Hudson River.