looking for natives for a woodland shade garden

found more White baneberry :)

Do you have any ginseng? Looks like the habitat might be good for it.

I'll trade you something I have for some of your baneberry seeds. What is on your wishlist?

Doh!!! I already planted them on my walk!!! Sorry. If i find more i promise they're all yours!
I am half tempted to try rooting hormone to try to clone some of these. That may be a project of mine next summer.

Sometimes gardens that happen naturally are more beautiful than those we carefully plan and plant.
Here's an example.

I just love ferns. Wish there were more back here.

Here's another in a further location.

I personally dislike ginseng as a source of nutrition. I think it tastes like dirty roots. Lol i have never seen the plant itself so maybe I'll have to give it a try. I'll look it up.
Not in my own yard but at salmon river falls i saw this cute litter native, and it's high on the list for when i get that scary overgrown mess cleaned up. That's the marshy spot in the yard. So I'd love to put in some parnassia and hepatica.
This is the parnassia i found
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1937/

I don't eat ginseng either. They ARE dirty roots! I just like them because they are getting more rare.

I haven't seen the Parnassia around here. The Hepatica I have, but the deer nibbled them off so I don't have any seeds. :~(

Is it possible the plant above NativeVA says was Jack in the Pulpit is a Callicarpa?

I'm really loving your report of all the natives on the property. I have been sort of a native plant purist for years, but I only recently started planting in the shade - you've got practically everything a gal could ever hope for right there in your backyard. :D

Oh, i found a better one with leaves still in tact I'm nearly positive it actually is Jack in the pulpit. And i sure hope so.
Any ideas what this might be? I tried to get better photos now that it wasn't so windy.

A close up of the flowers

The leaf

Another shot from further back and sort of a side angle

In this photo you can see the shape of what i believe is the seed. Sort of shaped like a skate ( those ocean creatures)

OutlawHeart81, that's not a Jack-In-The-Pulpit. I would have to do a little more research on it (but I don't have time right now). The green berries near the top of this thread are from a Jack. They should be turning a bright red by now. I was just in NJ over the weekend and saw some that were red ripe.


Here is the Jack-in-the-Pulpit: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/160657/

The flower will be gone and the leaves will probably be yellow/brown by now. The berries should be red and the plant will probably be colapsed.

This message was edited Sep 16, 2011 11:24 AM

Perhaps your plant is Canadian wood nettle, Laportea canadensis. Check out the pictures at this link. http://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/canadian-wood-nettle

I sure think OutlawHeart81 was just running sentences/thoughts together in that post above.

Like, she's got a better picture of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit with intact leaves (somewhere). THEN - does anyone have an idea what this is, followed by the series of 5 pics.

If not - then all OutlawHeart81's qualifications come into question...

Lol yes!!! I run sentences together.
This is the Jack in the pulpit. The berries now reddened and have been planted. As you said the plant was collapsed on one, but another smaller Jack i found, (only after the berries were red did i even see the little guy, several feet from the first one which is pictured here) still had it's foliage in tact. Unfortunately i did not get photos of it before the leaves withered. I am sure (these) are Jack in the pulpit. Lol

Not sure what this is. Perhaps its a Canadian wood nettle as suggested?

Lol i tend to ramble. Sorry. I'll try harder to separate my thoughts in posts from now on as not to confuse myself and others. :)

Your right I re-read it, sorry.

Here are some more shots of the Jack in the pulpit in question i tried to get the leaf, or Whats left of it in the shot.

Close up of another ripe one (from the very first picture of it)

Weird looking when you pick the berries off....

Very nice photos! :)

Here are some big creepy crawlers i found when i leaned against this tree with my hand and the bark fell off (there are a lot of dead trees back here)
Eeeeek heebijeebies

Super cool. :)

Now awoken from their long winter's nap, I suppose they'll be at your doorstep end of this month - looking for sustenance...

Eeeeek!!! Oh god, that is enough to keep me awake all night... Bwahha i can't deal with caterpillar. Or centipedes/milipedes.... Yeeesh

Many very exciting possibilities there!

Your energy might best be directed at first removing anything you are sure is non native invasive. This by itself will give more opportunity for any natives to reseed or spread themselves. And you'll need a lot of energy to make a dent in those invasives.

The crawlers ARE millipedes. A ranger in MD told us not to handle them. I don't think they can bite but something either toxic or stinky was involved. They're loving the rotten wood and debris.

This will be my biggest task, the invasive removal. While some of the vicious spreaders ie: black walnut are native, i don't want them everywhere. Is sumac native? I don't really care, it's still going... Ok, maybe...it's one of those weedy things i am afraid I'll battle for the rest of my life. I am really going to have to brush up on what i can pull, and what i should save. But i need to be careful. Not far from this area is a hedge row taken over with sumac and dog wood, and bind weed, creeping myrtleand other scary guys.

I'd be guessing at what your invasives are but you can look up Ailanthus and start there if you have any. It resembles sumac but you can learn to tell it apart. Bittersweet that you have may well be Oriental. Multiflora rose. English ivy. Liriope. ...


I don't think I put sumac, and certainly not dogwood, in the nasty category.

Really?!!! I'll have to remember to get pics of the dogwood here!!! It takes over pastures and hedgerows here. There's definitely ivy. Ugh.... Seems like a waste of time to try getting rid of it all. :(
Some areas are much nicer than others. Which makes me even more aware of how delicately balanced each little eco system is. There are spots with nothing but masses of weeds and ivy, then areas of bare forest floor with large old trees, places with all sorts of mushrooms, and spots with lots of understory. Each little place back there has a feel to it. My goal is not to disturb Whats happily growing unless it's a horrible weed that threatens to upset the whole area.

Perhaps we need 'dogwood intervention' here... What type of dogwood is invasive on the east coast? We have wonderful native dogwoods here in the PNW and I am always so pleased to find one growing on its own. Also the small native groundcover. What is your nemesis?

Here we have something red that almost resembles a viburnum with blue berries that turn white. I Will try to get some photos. I think it's kin to red twig dogwood. Or maybe that's what it is. I am still new to this. You should all just come over so i can show you all the great and not so great. Plus ya'll can help me get rid of the weeds!!! Lol i