Hey GPODers!
We’re continuing on our virtual 2024 Bitterroot Secret Garden Tour™ today, visiting the wildlife- and pollinator-friendly garden of Mary Byers.
Mary learned basic gardening knowledge in her parent’s vegetable garden in Wyoming but her personal journey began in the early ‘90s in Western Montana where she began fostering orphan plants at Bitterroot Native Growers where she worked. The hardiness of those plants in her dry yard was the inspiration to keep planting more native species. Growing organic food evolved alongside nurturing the native species she was learning about. An early memory was of her grandmother’s driveway in rural Pennsylvania which held a bed of tiger lilies and symbolized “arrival at Grandma’s place” one of her favorite places. There was a subsistence vegetable garden her grandmother tended and any rabbits that dared venture in for a nibble found themselves in the soup pot along with the home grown vegetables. Grandma was a crack shot.
The climate in Wyoming where she grew up was not much different than here in Montana so her learning curve was mild. Mary was a self-employed textile artist and subsidized her income by working at Bitterroot Restoration and Great Bear Restoration and also assisted as a wilderness guide in Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and Southern Utah. Exposure to wildflowers in nature inspired her to recreate some of the beauty and habitat she witnessed on the trails.
Mary’s sense of need for native plantings in suburban settings has been validated in Doug Tallamy’s book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” for benefit to insects and animals that have evolved here. He writes, “In the past, we have asked one thing of our gardens: that they be pretty. Now they have to support life, sequester carbon, feed pollinators and manage water.” His concept of “Home-Grown National Parks” has gained momentum with landowners across the country to create habitat that sustains native species. Mary’s garden and landscape design has been created to do just that. It’s a hidden treasure.
A homemade hypertufa pot ready for the zen garden. To keep deer and moose (yes, moose!) out of her in-town gardens, Mary created a lovely twig barrier above her pick fence.
Mary uses livestock troughs for all her vegetable beds.
The front walkway leads up to a beautiful Montana native yellow primrose on the side of her porch.
A monarch Butterly lays eggs on one of her milkweed flowers (Asclepias speciosa, Zones 3–9).
The beautiful blue-purple color of a Montana large Penstemon (Penstemon grandifloras, Zones 3–8).
Arrowleaf Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata, Zones 4–8) has an impressive taproot that can grow to 4” in diameter and 8’ deep. It takes 5 years of root development before it blooms.
The aforementioned moose feasting on Golden Currents in Mary’s backyard.
So far on this virtual tour we’ve seen a large property full of colorful plants grown from seed, a small urban lot that makes the most of its limited foot print, and a tranquil garden that is in harmony with the wild nature that surrounds… and we still have two more gardens to go! Be sure to come back tomorrow to see where the Bitterroot Secret Garden Tour takes us next!
Have a garden you’d like to share?
Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!
To submit, send 5-10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.
Have a mobile phone? Tag your photos on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #FineGardening!
Do you receive the GPOD by email yet? Sign up here.
