Dry Sandy Site Pack

Why these six go together

These are the plants of pine barrens, dunes and prairie, and they treat a dry sandy bank as home rather than hardship. Bear oak and dwarf chinquapin oak are true shrub oaks: bear oak is one of the great caterpillar hosts of the East, and dwarf chinquapin drops sweet, low-tannin acorns within a few years of planting. Beach plum is salt-proof and drought-proof and covers itself in white bloom each May. Staghorn sumac gives the best fall color on a dry bank and red fruit cones that birds work through the winter. Leadplant roots deep, fixes nitrogen and carries purple spikes in summer. Black huckleberry fills the ground layer with sweet black berries and crimson fall leaves.

Nothing in the set needs fertilizer or irrigation once it is established, and all six feed the insects, birds and mammals of dry country.

Where it fits

Full sun and sharp drainage: sand, gravel, a south-facing bank, the strip along a driveway. All six take drought. Dwarf chinquapin oak, sumac and huckleberry also accept average soil. Together they are hardy in zones 4 through 7. Huckleberry is the one that stops at 7, and the rest go to 8. Leadplant and beach plum are hardy far to the north.

Heights: leadplant and huckleberry 1 to 3 feet, beach plum 4 to 8, the two oaks 6 to 20, staghorn sumac 15 to 25. Sumac spreads by root suckers into a colony, so give it the far end where it can run. Spacing, from the plant pages: leadplant 2 feet apart, huckleberry 2 to 3, beach plum 6, sumac 6 to 12, and the two oaks 8 to 12, with sumac 15 feet from the house.

See the set's year in the bloom and fruit calendar, how many of each give a crop in the pollination planner, and how far its tallest plant goes from the house in the planting-distance tool.

Planting the pack

Plant small and dormant. The oaks and leadplant put their first years into a deep root and resent moving later. Water weekly through the first summer only. Cage the oaks and plum against deer for two or three years, and keep mulch thin: these plants want their crowns dry.

Plant two of each, twelve in all. Bear oak, beach plum and leadplant set acorns, fruit or seed only with pollen from a second plant, and huckleberry appears to need one too. A lone dwarf chinquapin oak sets a light crop. Two staghorn sumacs are plenty, since each spreads by root suckers into a colony. A sumac is male or female, though, and only a female carries the red fruit cones: two give an even chance of both, and five a 94% chance.

The shrub oaks and huckleberry are slow. Beach plum and sumac are quick, and sumac can be cut to the ground in late winter wherever the colony has gone too far.