Southeast Chapter 2nd Annual Native Plant Gardens Tour

2nd ANNUAL NATIVE PLANT GARDENS TOUR
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 14th, 12:00 – 4:00
free & open to the public
sponsored & organized by
THE NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY OF NJ, SOUTHEAST CHAPTER

This year’s self-guided tour includes five unique gardens varying in size, growing conditions, and longevity. The gardens include a suburban Northfield yard featuring native plants throughout the property; an amazing “wild but lush” property on the Tuckahoe River in Woodbine; an ambitious, newly-established pollinator initiative in Marmora; and two very successful pollinator gardens in Cape May Court House, both developed and maintained by dedicated butterfly enthusiasts. Please be sure to sign in as you arrive at each garden where you will be offered a plug of a native perennial that you can take home to plant.

Dave Kaczorowski

100 Northfield Ave, Northfield, NJ

Our lot is 100’ wide, 200’ deep and has sandy soil. We have eleven small gardens ranging in size from 20 square feet to 180 square feet. We raise a combination of native perennials, annuals, grasses, sedges and shrubs and have converted about half of the front yard to gardens, with 100 square feet of that space is a work in progress.

We also have a number on non-native shrubs, mainly hydrangeas and azaleas, but they seem to fit in nicely with the natives. Oaks, red cedars, hackberries and black cherry trees are the dominant features in the yard.

Our original intent of the native planting, which began in 2017, was to provide food for birds, so we have winterberry, Viburnum, blueberries, silky dogwood, and other fruit-bearing shrubs. Parking is available on the street.

Carol and Bill Steumpfig

247 Marshallville Rd., Woodbine, NJ

At the road our property is 50 feet wide with a 14 ft elevation. Then it goes back and drops 250 feet to the Tuckahoe River, where the property is 125 ft wide. We have been landscaping here for twelve years.

The main native garden in the backyard is about 200 sq ft. We also have a garden of native grasses, a small bog, a frog pond, and about fifty native shrubs. There are two other garden areas with native perennials.

Partial Plant List: silky dogwood, black gum, sweet gum, various Viburnums, red cedar (a.k.a eastern juniper), various Phlox, beach plum, bayberry, and approximately forty native perennials. We could go on and on.

It is unruly but lush and full of wildlife and pollinators.

Parking is available in our driveway and the street.

Cameron Wildlife Sanctuary, the VanWindergen family

Cape May County Park North, Cameron Wildlife Sanctuary, 1099 US-9, Marmora, NJ

Since April 2023 we have been managing two native plant gardens close to the park entrance. The first consists of ten raised beds and a small shade garden that’s in progress. Enter the park gate and follow the trail a short distance. The second garden (the “Spiral Garden”) is located in the lawn to the north of the parking lot, outside of the fencing, and is about 1,000 sq ft.

We are new to native plant gardening, and started the raised beds in 2023 with plant donations from local native plant gardeners and the support of the Cape May County Parks Dept. The Spiral Garden was created in 2024.

Partial Plant List: milkweeds, asters, blue mistflower, coastal joe-pye weed, spotted beebalm, cup plant, anise hyssop, boneset, and other native perennials.

There’s a small parking lot at the park entrance. The park has bathroom facilities and short walking trails around a lake.

Dolores Amesbury

101 East Woodland Ave, Cape May Court House

We’ve lived on our property for thirteen years. The main yard is an acre comprising pitch pines, red cedars, oaks, maples, dogwoods and sassafras. There are wax myrtle and blueberry bushes scattered throughout our adjacent one-acre wooded lot.

Over the years we’ve added many native trees, including sweetbay magnolia, black cherry, redbud, and hackberry, and many shrubs, including arrowwood viburnum, chokeberry, sweet pepperbush, Inkberries, nine-bark, and serviceberry. 

Perennials include sneezeweed, goldenrod, mountain mint, asters, Phlox, ironweed, and turtlehead.  We have a water feature built for the birds and also our occasional box turtles.  We’ve surrounded the feature with a few native shrubs and perennials including the numerous ‘volunteers’ which appear throughout our very wild-looking yard.  Nothing formal about this wildlife friendly property!

There is easy parking on the street.

Therese Hurter

21 West Woodland Ave, Cape May Court House

Our yard is one acre. When we bought the property eight years ago there was nothing here but turf grass, the requisite foundation plantings, butterfly bushes, burning bushes, and crepe myrtle. We removed those non-natives and other invasives and started planting native trees, bushes, and native perennials and upped that effort when we moved in full-time five years ago. We built a water feature for the birds, and that and the added native plants have made a difference in wildlife here that has been epic.

Trees we’ve planted include willow oaks, black cherries, river birch, sweetbay magnolias, eastern red cedars, dogwoods, redbuds, southern magnolias, fringe tree, and chokecherry.

Shrubs we’ve added include witch-hazel, beautyberry, wax myrtle, ninebark, Viburnums, gray dogwood, red chokeberry, black chokeberry, serviceberry, buttonbush, St John’s Wort, inkberry, mountain laurel, swamp azalea, elderberry, and spicebushes.

Native perennials we’ve planted include great blue lobelia, cardinal flower, blue vervain, partridge pea, Mayapples, beardtongue, wild bergamot, various goldenrods and asters, coneflower, tickseed, mountain mint, violets, green-and-golds, butterfly weed, spiderwort, garden phlox, spring beauties, woodland sunflowers, coral honeysuckle, ironweed, snakeroot, thoroughwort, and common and swamp milkweed. We’ve also planted numerous ferns, northern river oats, little bluestem, and numerous ferns. There is plenty of parking on our street and in our driveway.

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