Heather McCargo, Founder of Maine’s Wild Seed Project
Hedges and Edges: Increasing the Resilience and Diversity of Your Garden’s Ecosystem
Edge areas, also called, ecotone transitions are places where you will find two distinct ecosystems meeting; for example a grassland meeting a woodland, or a riparian area where water meets the land. These edge habitats are very often the richest areas for species diversity for insects, plants, birds, and other wildlife. The natural layered system at the edge of a woodland, containing groundcover to shrubs to mid-story to upper canopy of trees is an ecosystem that is ubiquitous in our suburban yards of the northeast.
Join Heather McCargo as she inspires us to use hedges and edges in our garden design and puts this natural phenomenon to good use increasing productivity and biodiversity of our yards. Creating hedgerows between garden zones breaks up the space and adds a whole new range of microclimates and growing conditions.
Even if you don’t have natural ecotone transition areas in your yard, you can create them by grouping together shrubs of different species into a hedgerow for small or large spaces, add herbaceous groundcovers and small trees to the shrub layer for a multi-level garden that creates amazing habitat for a variety of species.
Multi-species hedgerows can create a living fence along sidewalks, driveways, or between properties. Learn how to super-charge your garden’s biodiversity with the native shrubs and trees that are ready now for fall planting.
Heather McCargo is the founder of Wild Seed Project, a Maine based nonprofit that works to increase the use of seed grown native plants in all landscape settings. Wild Seed publishes and annual magazine “Wild Seed”, sells seeds and plants of locally grown wild type native plants, and has created a series of guides on Native Trees, Native Groundcovers, and now Native Shrubs of the Northeast.
Multi-species hedgerows can create a living fence along sidewalks, driveways, or between properties for privacy. Learn how to super-charge your garden’s biodiversity with the native shrubs and trees that are ready now for fall planting and available at our fall sale.
From left, Viburnum dentatum, Viburnum cassinoides, and Amelanchier are all beautiful additions to a mixed hedgerow. Photo: Wild Seed Project