I love to give away native plants to my neighborhood. This time I gave away Senna ligustrina, a native legume with beautiful flowers. These are all seedlings germinated from seeds of plants in my garden! It feels like I’m doing one small part — and helping others do one small part — in the large web of action required to help restore our ecosystem.
I don’t like to be pushy about it and force them on people. I learned that lesson when I was just getting into photography. As I started to improve, friends started to compliment my work. I took that as a sign that they wanted some, and began giving prints as gifts. Well, just because someone likes or appreciates something, doesn’t mean they want it. Perhaps they don’t have the wall space, or perhaps it doesn’t match any room’s style. In that case, the gift became a burden. The same is true for plants. The recipient may not have any room for another plant, or a particular plant may not match their approach to gardening. In addition to becoming a burden, the plant is also more likely to just sit on their patio and die while they decide what to do with it. No one wants that!
My tactic: just take one if you want it!
So instead, my approach was just to leave them in my front yard, with a sign offering them for free. I wasn’t sure how this would go, but I have to say, it has gone great. Before, I had only ever done this with a single plant at a time. It was always gone within an hour or two. This time, the whole batch was gone before the afternoon “walking rush hour” was over (around 7pm). Our street is a very popular walking route, which I’m sure helps me a lot in this regard.
One down side to this tactic is that I may not know who is taking the plants. It would be fun to know where they are going, and maybe periodically check out how they’re doing. But it’s probably better this way. If I kept the giveaway to my close circle of acquaintances, the impact would be reduced. With strangers taking part (compelled by the ever-so-powerful lure of not having to interact with anyone, haha), I’m reaching more yards than I ever could otherwise. Plus, sometimes the strangers are compelled to reach out! Check out this cool note that some neighbors left me when they returned the pot:
About the plant: Senna ligustrina
Enough about the giveaway tactic, it’s time to talk about the plant itself. Senna ligustrina, or privet senna, is one of my personal favorites. It’s not the most common native senna — that would be Senna mexicana var. chapmanii, or Bahama Senna (previously called Bahama Cassia). That one you see everywhere. Senna ligustrina is far less common… though I wouldn’t go so far as to call it rare.
It’s a fast grower — it often blooms within its first year — which is a huge perk for me. I am mostly into trees, which often take many years before they bloom. So it’s nice to have some things in the garden which will bloom quickly and allow me to channel my patience to where it’s needed. The flowers are a beautiful goldenrod shade of yellow. Many species of butterfly love them for their nectar, and two types use them as a host plant: Cloudless Sulphur and Sleepy Orange. Click here to read more about Senna ligustrina from the Florida Native Plant Society.
Being a legume, they are also a nitrogen fixer. This means that they can take the nitrogen out of air and help put it in the soil, which reduces the need for fertilizer. Thus, they are great to scatter around within a veggie garden or food forest — they attract pollinators and enrich the soil!
So whether you are trying to return your yard to a native ecosystem, or use your yard to create some homegrown food, or even just appreciate some pretty flowers… Senna ligustrina is a great plant to include!