The case for planting

M argaret Roach New York Times

JARED ROSENBAUM knows the primal thrill of foraging — a sense of interdependence with the natural world that he wants his son to experience, too.

But as a field botanist, he also understands that foraging is one of the many pressures on native-plant populations. And he has a proposition for gardeners: What if we gave back to the wild edible plants that tempt us on our springtime woodland hikes, by welcoming them into the landscapes we cultivate?

It’s one layer of the habitat restoration and ecological design inspiration that he and his wife, Rachel Mackow, provide to clients of Wild Ridge Plants, in rural Pohatcong Township, New Jersey. And it’s reflected in many of their mail-order nursery’s plant choices, too.

In Rosenbaum’s recent book, “Wild Plant Culture: A Guide to Restoring Edible and Medicinal Native Plant Communities,” he revisits that idea: “The time has come to reconnect with our habitats, right where we live, work, and play,” he writes. “Not as museum pieces, but as vital, sustaining elements in our lives, livelihoods, and lifeways.”

That includes our gardens. “These are native plants’ once and future habitats,” Rosenbaum said in a recent interview, “the places where they used to reside that we have excluded them from for so long. One way to help these plants is to garden with them.”

“With foraging,” he added, “the connection can be very one-sided. It’s not relationship, and it’s not interdependency.”

On his list for building “food habitats” are not just native fruiting shrubs and trees such as blueberries, elderberries, beach plums, persimmons and pawpaws but herbaceous perennials with edible features.

Could you make room for homegrown wild leeks (Allium tricoccum), otherwise known as ramps? Or ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), whose at once crunchy and tender fiddleheads with their crazy spiral geometry make for a unique mouthfeel?

And did you know that wildflowers you may already be growing — including giant Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum var. commutatum) and the cutleaf, or tall, coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata) — likewise have springtime garden-to-table potential?

Time to dig in — in the garden and at the table.

Consider the plight of ramps

Native plant communities suffer as human development continues to degrade and eliminate habitats. Wild collecting is just one pressure — but it’s one Rosenbaum contends that gardeners can counteract.

He uses wild leeks, or ramps, as a poster child for the bigger message. In its fleeting moment each spring, that ephemeral woodland ground cover has become the star of restaurant menus. And the resulting demand has only intensified pressure on the plant’s population.

Gardeners may be familiar with the plight of charismatic native woodland wildflowers such as Trillium, but the story of ramps is not so different. Both plants have been overharvested, and both rebound slowly, if they do rebound, because they

For a fleeting moment each spring, wild leeks (otherwise known as ramps) are a star of restaurant menus, creating a demand that has intensified the pressure on wild populations. (JARED ROSENBAUM/WILD RIDGE PLANTS) are very slow to establish, requiring many years to reach reproductive maturity from seed. Ramps can take five years to rebound before they eventually colonize and form bulbs underground.

“So how many decades’ worth of wild leeks’ life can you eradicate in an hour with a shovel, going into a wild patch and digging them all up?,” Rosenbaum asked. “It’s sort of staggering.”

In spring, the bulbs send up long, straplike leaves resembling those of lily of the valley, but with a

Lee Reich | In the Garden