How to Choose Native Plants for Your Garden

[Music Playing] David Epstein: We are here today with Tom Smart Smart at the Wing Wild Flowers Society. We are literally going to look at some of, I guess your favorites. So tell me about this. Tom Smart: Well, this is the Celandine Poppy, bright beautiful yellow flower that blooms early in the spring. It is a very prolific plant, but what is really nice about bright yellow is in the nice contrast with the wood land Phlox. David Epstein: So these would do well in sort of a dappled shade, little bit of moist humousy soil. Tom Smart: Correct! David Epstein: So we are here in the propagation Trillium bed. Tom Smart: Trilliums are probably one of the number one plants that are collected out in the wild. These plants could take from a seed, could take almost 78 years to get to mature size, so we cut off the chase a little bit by growing this big stuck bed of plants that we have already propagated over time and we do divisions of them so that we can create a nice cell of a plant. David Epstein: Is it legal to take this out of the wild? Tom Smart: No, it is not legal. David Epstein: Okay! Tom Smart: These plants are specially plants, they are like sculpture in the gardens so you would make, have like one or two of these in the garden and then you would plat them in dappled wood land shade. David Epstein: I have seen Lady Slippers in the wild that are pink and I know I am not suppose to dig them up but this is yellow so tell me about this plant. Tom Smart: It tends to grow in sort of nice wood land, moist wood land soil again got and it daps really well to transplanting. David Epstein: Will they spread? Tom Smart: These will grow as a clamp. David Epstein: Alright, so I actually know this plant, it is Mayapple, right? Tom Smart: Mayapple, it is another great ground cover, nice bold, sort of umbrella left tight texture, it stands about 8 to almost 12 inches and has a nice little surprise under the leaves. David Epstein: Wow! Tom Smart: That bright little white flower. David Epstein: So that white flower and then does not get an apple. Tom Smart: It actually has an apple, I do not advise eating it though, and the entire plant is poisonous and is actually the chemical in the plant makes as use for a cancer treatment. Lance Armstrong some years ago had cancer and the cancer he had was actually treated by chemical that was derive from this plant. David Epstein: Wow! So we do not know what we are going to get from plants that is why we have got to preserve. Tom Smart: That is right, we need to protect them. David Epstein: Alright, thanks. Gardening with need of plants, it is important. And I think we want to try to get that into our minds so that we are thinking about it more often. Plenty of videos here at growingwisdom.com, please come back often. [Music Playing]