Category: Piedmont Natives

The hot, humid days of late summer are slightly more bearable in a leafy Piedmont forest—slightly.

If you’re on the East Coast and traversing the banks of a shaded stream or some other low-lying spot, you’re likely to come across a Southern lady, of the fern variety, that is.

The hardy Southern lady fern is a ubiquitous summer sight in the forests of Georgia and the Carolinas. I found the fern shown here in a patch of woods in Atlanta.

The ferns are deciduous, dropping their leaves in the winter months, so they won’t be lush and green for too much longer.

Some people would consider Daisy fleabane a weed, since it tends to pop up uninvited in unexpected places.

But I’m a big defender of many so-called weeds, including fleabane, which is a member of the aster family and a favorite of native bees and small insects. It’s tough, easy to grow, and I think its dainty white-and-yellow flowers are pretty.

It’s a better sight on the summer landscape than some tropical plant that subsists on hose water and chemicals.

Many people love dogwoods—I don’t.

Sensitive to the changing climate and highly vulnerable to disease, dogwoods are now rapidly becoming extinct in the forests of the Southeastern United States.

They’re also increasingly difficult to grow in even optimal conditions, and apart from the few weeks when they bloom each spring, I think they’re homely little trees.

I do, however, mourn for the birds, pollinators, and other animals that subsist on them, and I hope they can adapt more successfully than the trees have.

Many things will go extinct in my lifetime—the dogwood is likely one of them.

This is my tribute.

Here’s a fine fall friend I recently met on the Atlanta BeltLine.

Hooray for public arboretums!