Sue Theriault’s Garden May 2021
Dominique and Ginger spent a recent morning touring with Sue Theriault her multi- faceted garden. Sue describes herself as an Ecological Gardener who wants to work together with her landscape to create a habitat where native fauna and flora flourish. Daune Peckham, Marty Fisher and Doug Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home inspired her approach to gardening.
Can you tell us a little history about your garden and how it evolved?
I have lived with this garden for five years now since we moved from our house on South of Commons. So I’m just getting started! On the one acre lot there is a wild wooded edge, a young mini-meadow, a grove of mostly chokecherries with grass underneath, gardens or empty beds that now extend around the perimeter of the house, and very young shrub beds that are within the stone walls that border South Shore and Milton Lane. When I first moved to this house I did a lot of observing to learn what the former owner introduced to the property, but also, what grew here naturally. The wild edge really taught me a lot. It was overrun with the typical invasive plants: bittersweet, honeysuckle and multiflora rose, but there were lots of productive native plants too: Viburnum dentatum (arrowwood), serviceberry, blueberry, winterberry, elderberry, holly and red cedar saplings. So over the course of the last three Springs I cleared away invasive plants to give the natives a chance. I’ve also used what was growing naturally in the edge to inform my plant choices in other areas of the property. My goal is to create a mostly native garden property that is ecologically productive but also has mass appeal so others will be inspired to do the same. I’ve given myself a 10 year horizon on this, so let’s say by 2030.
Over time I increased the amount of garden space to reduce lawn and make room for new native plantings. I really try to take my cues from plants that seem to want to be here. I have common milkweed that grows in a sunny spot where the grass was patchy at the end of my driveway, so that became the site for my mini-meadow and the milkweed has a place to roam. (I know some people hate this plant, but its fragrance is amazing and it hosts so many other insects besides the monarch.).Different types of native aster and goldenrod, the two most productive herbaceous plants per Doug Tallamy, are here so I let them be in the meadow and the wild edges. Wild strawberry, Virginia creeper, and wood violets make beautiful ground covers and are here naturally - I just weed around them to reduce competition so they can spread under my trees and shrubs.I’m really trying to let nature do the work! One lesson I have learned though is to keep some of the plants I just mentioned out of the “more formal” areas, like the foundation gardens. Instead, let them roam in the wilder areas where they will compete with invasive plants - like my new nemesis - garlic mustard! I use the more formal areas now for a high diversity of less aggressive natives. Originally, I pulled up sod to make space for a growing band of native shrubs but found the best method was layering cardboard, leaves, and compost to expand my planting areas and then slowly and steadily introduce more native plants.
In this way I have increased a band of native shrubs along the stone wall bordering South Shore Road and expanded the gardens circling the house. I really don’t grow any people food. I let my local farmers do that. I grow food for all of the other animals - insects, birds and mammals - and get so much joy out of watching them all!
2. How have you personally developed and evolved as a gardener?
Philosophically, I feel more like an ecologist than a gardener. I love to understand the role a plant plays in an ecosystem and I understand now that not all plants play an equal role, even among native plants. My younger gardening self was not concerned with function, where now I find beauty in function. My younger self ignored the shrub/understory layer and was all about perennials - I had a vegetable garden for a while too. While my present self is very focused on the shrub/understory layer which is the best way to help the birds, and as I get older, I hope will be easier to maintain. Lastly, I think I am taking more of a long view and realizing that plants need time to get established and to spread. I think it is ironic that it took being older to be able to take a long view!
3. What is your involvement with the Rhode Island Wild Plant Society Plant Society ?
I knew when I retired 3 years ago that I wanted to join our garden club because I used to get so much joy from shopping at Blossoms and Sweets and talking about plants with the members. Providing the public with inexpensive plants that proved themselves able to grow in this area is a service to the community and helped me personally develop as a gardener. Thank you all! A conversation with Marty Fisher at one of the sales led me to the RI Wild Plant Society. TheThe Society rents greenhouse space at a wholesale nursery in Portsmouth and that is where I volunteer each Thursday to care for and propagate the native plant stock. I have learned so much from this group! I am apprenticing to take over as Plant Sale Chair which will be a big job as the organization, in a normal year, has a spring, summer and fall sale. I am currently working on plant inventory numbers so they can be uploaded into a Square program so we can have our second on-line sale for RIWPS members in June. I’ve also just written two articles for their upcoming publication, Wild Flora. It’s an organization where I can use a variety of skill sets while doing something I feel very passionate about. I’m also active here in town on the Tree and Wilbour Woods Committees.
Sue’s Three Gardening Tips
1) “Take your passion and make it happen”, Flashdance 1983, applies to the garden too! Don’t be afraid to have your own tastes and vision. Don’t worry about what others might think as they drive past your house! Be you! 2) Buy small. Plants are expensive and they don’t always make it. This frees the budget for more plants and experimentation as you find the right plant for the conditions. 3) Gardening is a wonderful blend of science and art. Keep learning about both, from friends, experts and books and try to enjoy the process as much as the result. Sue views her gardening as a “reward”—her garden is her place to relax and unwind. She hopes in 10 years that she will have won her battles with invasive plants in the wild edge of her garden so a healthy understory of native shrubs will thrive, that the meadow that borders her like-minded neighbor will expand along with her shrub plantings along her stone wall so that thousands of birds, insects and caterpillars will find a home. At the end of our visit, Sue pointed out, Garlic Mustard, an invasive plant she has been battling. It poisons the soil around it so native species can’t grow. Garlic Mustard is just beginning to bloom along our roadsides in Little Compton. Now is the best time to pull it out by the entire root. Dispose of it in a garbage bag (it can still complete flowering and set seed once pulled!) You can find out more about other invasive plants in a booklet Guide To Invasive Plants In Massachusetts that will be on sale at the Blossoms and Sweets sale in May.