By Ken Mammarella
Contributing Writer

At the start of an interview, Erin Rowe explained her perspective on the native plants that increasingly fill her property near Middletown and excite the 6,000 members of the Delaware Native Plant Identification and Exchange, a private Facebook group that she founded.

“I’m not a landscaper. I’m not a horticulturalist. I’m not a botanist,” she said. “This is strictly a labor of love, and I’m learning as I go.”

One thing she’s learned is the difference between native (“it could just be native to North America”) and indigenous (historically found in Delaware). “It’s my personal mission to make that distinction.”

She and her husband, Christopher, bought the property in 2009. After living with it awhile (a pause is time-tested advice for new homeowners), they began ripping out invasives, interlopers and thugs.

The result is 10 planting areas on their sloping acre, which backs up on the Armstrong Farm, part of the 1,200 acres in Delaware Wild Lands’ Augustine Creek holdings.

“I’m out here every single day in the growing season,” she said, enabled by her summers-off schedule as a Wilmington University adjunct professor.

“I monitor each section that I created to see what it does, and that gives me a better sense of how to manage it,” she said. “I’m out there, staring at it, looking at what’s growing, what’s crowding out other things. I monitor whether a particular plant is happy in the spot I’ve placed it.”

How it all began

Her childhood home in the Middletown area, the first house she and her husband bought and their current home (which they share with sons Wil and Simon and the dog Lulu) are all poetically on streets with botanical names.

But she got into plants via birds. It all started when she was volunteering at Tri-State Bird & Rescue through AmeriCorps, which led to an internship and then a job as an avian rehabilitation manager.

And she realized, partly through reading the writings of UD professor Doug Tallamy, that “If you don’t have plants, you don’t have insects. And if you don’t have insects, you don’t have birds.”

“My first native garden was at our old house,” she said. “I just went to the nature society plant sale and picked up stuff that seemed interesting. My two little garden beds in my tiny townhouse backyard. And that fall we moved out, so I did not get to see it come to fruition.”

With a lot of sweat and some hiring of professionals (such as someone who could handle the poison ivy) she has ripped out what doesn’t belong on their current property and replanted (or at least mulched, awaiting good ideas). “The more disturbed the land is, the more susceptible it is to invasives.”

The landscaping is informal, and the property supports multiple uses for the family, including a ninja line, a teardrop hammock, a tree swing, a patio, a fire pit and a coop for eight chickens.

Delaware Native Plant Identification and Exchange

The planting areas are partly defined by their microclimates, including a ditch that floods regularly and shade from mature trees in the back. The place and the Facebook group also illustrate Rowe’s growing “buy nothing” beliefs. She has given an arbor “a second life” after she found it in the trash, and she has also picked up hardscaping from all over to provide “cues to care” around the beds. 

New Castle County Council in April revised county code to encourage pollinator gardens (basically meaning native plants that attract native insects) and rain gardens (designed to handle stormwater).

The Delaware Native Plant Identification and Exchange went live on May 6, 2015.

“I started with just a desire, and a handful of knowledge. We welcome all questions,” Rowe said, and there’s a refrain of posts asking others to identify what they have. “Apps aren’t 100% accurate,” she said, and people posting on the group have said apps sometimes won’t even hazard a guess. “And the conversation provides a sense of community.”

Rowe offered these stats that the group focuses on: There are 2,435 flora taxa in Delaware. Of them, 1,640 are native; 85 are invasive; 86 are on the invasive watchlist; 137 are non-indigenous; 233 are waifs (tend to disappear, but may not and become reclassified). So 32% of the flora in Delaware is not historically native.

On their land, the Rowes have documented impressive numbers of creatures drawn to native plants: 161 bird species, 33 butterfly species, 11 dragonfly species, six turtle species and six snake species.

Scanning through 100 or so recent posts to the Facebook group shows some recurring themes: What is this plant? Is this the native kind or the similar foreign one? How can I solve this landscaping/horticultural challenge? Anyone want/have this to share? The last category is highlighted weekly on “Wish Wednesday.”

Nurturing each other

The group has also hosted planted exchanges in the spring and full, when replanting is best, and posts chances to volunteer. 

“I like cramming stuff in and making paths.” Rowe wrote in a post this summer. “I’m also terrible at editing. I want them all to live wherever they decide. Still, it’s lovely.”

The property is not completely native. “I have a Japanese painted fern that’s a cute gift from my mother,” she said.

Membership can be transformative.

Liz Allen and Rowe went to grad school together. “I like nature, but I didn’t even know what native plants were when Liz asked me to join,” said Allen, one of four moderators. “Through the group, I changed my career” from teaching English as a second language to promoting native plants.

She became a Delaware master naturalist through the University of Delaware and started doing property restoration. She now works as a teacher at Mt. Cuba, the Hockessin garden that showcases native plants, and is the garden manager and horticulturalist at Gibraltar, the Wilmington estate with faded Italianate Beaux Arts gardens designed in 1916.

“It’s wonderful to have knowledgeable people in the group, like Elaine Schmerling, who are willing to help identify exotic invasives in our yards and suggest more suitable native plants to use instead,” said member Sue Hudson. “The group is also a great place to meet like-minded people to exchange plants with and even make new friends.”