Easy Gardener • Pat Howell
	A walk on the wild side

We still have some woodland areas around our homes in the Silver Spring/Takoma Park area, despite the drone of the developers' chain saws. If you are fortunate enough to be able to walk out the back door to a wooded area, it might be possible to see a fox, likely a deer or three, or maybe Mrs. Possum (who has moved on, no longer wintering-over here at Plant Chaos Central), and hear a score of our local birds.

In the March issue, we promised we would be writing this month about the elements of integrating your garden into a native woodland area (if you have one that backs up to your property), and about how to layer plants into your garden to attract a variety of wildlife.

We began our research on the Internet and found 1,050,000 hits for "shade Gardens"; 1,560,000 for "native plant gardens"; 2,130,000 for "woodland gardens"; 5,510,000 (!) for "rock gardens"; and 84,800 for "backyard habitats."

Can't beat that.

So we thought we would provide a few local organizations to investigate; gardens to visit (since nothing beats a garden visit); catalogs, magazines, and books that we recommend; and some plant societies that merit attention.

JOIN LOCALLY: · Friends of Sligo Creek (fosc.org or 301-681-9686)
· Silver Spring Garden Club (Alice Frandsen, President, 301-649-4645)
· Takoma Horticultural Society (takomahort.org, harristakoma@erols.com, or 301-270-5481)
· Friends of Brookside Gardens (brooksidegardens.org or 301-962-1400)
· Friends of the National Arboretum (usna.usda.gov or 202-245-2726)

ADDITIONALLY:
North American Rock Garden Society, Potomac Valley Chapter;
Azalea Society;
Camellia Society;
Maryland Native Plant Society;
Potomac Hosta Club.
Call us if you can't find them.

VISIT:
National Arboretum, particularly Fern Valley;
Brookside Gardens;
Cylburn Arboretum in Baltimore;
Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown;
Audubon Society at Woodend in Silver Spring.

PATRONIZE:
Windy Hill Plant Farm, Aldie, Virginia;
Stadler's Nursery;
Behnke's Nursery;
Homestead Nursery in Davidsonville, Md.

WEBSITES TO DROOL OVER (and it's safe to shop from them!): Forest Farm (forestfarm.com), Greer Gardens (greergardens.com), Heronswood (heronswood.com), and Woodlanders (woodlanders.net).

CATALOGS: Easy Gardener suggests that you take a buyer-beware approach to most mail-order catalogs that flood your mailbox. If the price looks too good to be true, and the picture the same, it probably is!

READ: Two magazines worth your time: Fine Gardening and Horticulture.

BOOKS we rely on:
· Brooklyn Botanic Garden Handbooks (718-622-4433, ext. 265): Woodland Gardens; Native Perennials; The Shady Border; The Butterfly Gardener's Guide, 2003; and Butterfly Gardens, 1995.
· Hummingbird Gardens, by Nancy Newfield and Barbara Nielsen (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, New York, 1996)
· The Natural Shade Garden, by Ken Druse (Clarkson Potter, N.Y. 1992)
· The Complete Shade Gardener, by George Schenk (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1984)
· An Encyclopedia of Shade Perennials, by W. George Schmid (Timber Press, Portland, Cambridge, 2002)

And don't forget the Takoma Park House and Garden Tour on the first Sunday in May.

Pat Howell is a Takoma Park gardener and landscape designer/contractor. She is available for hand-holding and answering questions through Deephaven Landscapers.

Past columns can be found at www.takomavoice.com and www.silverspringvoice.com.