As a gardener and professor of horticulture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dr. Shelley Jansky was confident she knew a lot about plants—with good reason. Then she discovered native plants, and everything changed. Especially her yard.
I have been a gardener for as long as I can remember, but I’ve only recently discovered the
many joys of working with native plants. In the past, my goal was to create a pleasing
arrangement of plants that, once established, would be predictable and constant over time.
Now, I think of myself as working alongside Mother Nature, embracing diversity and change.
This transition has required destructive processes in my gardens and in my way of thinking.
The rewards, though, have been more than I ever would have imagined.
—Shelley Jansky
Jansky will discuss her journey in a special guest talk, “Embracing Native Plants: Trials and Tribulations,” at 6 p.m. ET, Tuesday, May 21 on Zoom.
You can click here to join the meeting. The regular chapter board meeting will follow; all are welcome to attend.
Clockwise from upper left are images from Jansky’s garden: a bumblebee on a wild bergemot, a bottle gentian seedling, some of her thousands of homegrown transplants, Jansky transplanting seedlings, a wasp heading toward a red milkweed, and some very healthy plugs of great blue lobelia.
