Believe it or not some folks love skunk cabbage and will trade you for other plants on the plant exchage forum.
As long as where you plant is not soggy you should be fine with blueberries herbs and veggies as they need good drainage .... the high ground is what you want.Good luck .Kareen

Thanks Karen,

Why do people love Skunk Cabbage ? Been told here that it smells something awful if the leaves are bruised.
Soil near wetlands usually have good drainage ? What you mean by "highground " is a bit up the slope from the post rain soggy areas ?

Marty

The folks I sent it to did not have our variety growing in their area and wanted to try it where they lived. It really is pretty and comes green so early it is a harbinger of spring. It does smell if it is trampled on .
Yes , high ground meaning away and elevated for drainage from the soggy areas. K

Skunk cabbage grows where very few things will. You can't grow veggies or shrubs or blueberries in land which supports skunk cabbage - it's just too wet. You could plant marsh marigolds, petasites, primroses,veratrum,filipendula,ferns,willows.
But forget herbs which require full sun and dryish soil. And forget veggies which would rot. And not many garden plants will grow where skunk cabbage will.
To get rid of skunk cabbage (if you must) use round-up. But you're better off leaving it since it doesn't compete with other plants. Try ostrich fern and see how it does.
Iris psuedacorus (yellow swamp iris)and iris versicolor. Forgetmenots if it's sunny.

Hi Voicelit! My Sister-in-law lives in Putnam Valley, right on the Shrub Oak border. Her property conditions sound somewhat similar to yours, and she's had a very successful vegetable garden after putting some work in. She has a marshy brook on her property, so she located the garden on higher ground safely away from it. She built a large raised bed to help with the drainage issues, and more importantly, fenced it in to protect it from the critters, which are extremely abundant in the area. The fence is both high- to protect it from the deer, as well as dropped about a foot or so underground, to protect from groundhogs, voles, bunnies, etc... She also has a large dog patrolling the premises. Before she built the fencing, she lost virtually her entire crop to varmints.

She grows the usual tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, strawberries, melon, cabbage, lettuce, eggplant and zuccini. Her vegetable garden is too wet for the herbs to thrive there, but she plants them, along with flowers, on the higher ground in her front yard.

Can't help with the skunk cabbage, but hope this helps.

Jessica

Hello All,

Anyone who wants some, take mine! I just purchased a home next to a boggy area. These plants are plentiful, huge and healthy. If you can get them out, you can have them FREE!! Near Rochester, NY.

Joanne

skunk cabbage is an amazing plant. one of the most advanced wildflowers on earth. it can live for over 2000 years!!!
The Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus Foetidus)
this plant is usually treated like trash bacause of many lies. but in reality when you get to know them these plants will facinate you, most likely more than any other plant. the skunk cabbage is a very advanced creature, even for a plant. it can manipulate heat. it uses this heat to melt through the snow and bloom very early in the season. i have watched this plant abused ever since i was a child. it is always been one of my favorite plants and i have always ttried in vain to protect them... but to no avail. swamps are filled, millions of skunk cabbage smothered and ripped apart by bulldozers and excavators... hated literally to death by farmers and gardeners alike. they kick over the flowers. they chop the plants down and put systematic herbacide on the wound causing massive chemical burns which slowly and agonizingly kill the plant. people stomp on them and blugeon them and no one seems to care. what these humans don't understand is how intelligent and amazing these creatures truly are. they just can't comrehend that anything is abl to feel without a human brain... but the skunk cabbage has a brain. its called a caudex. it is a cental nervous system located at the base of the thick subterranian stem. it looks like a spine. with a woody calloused exterior replacing bone. and inside is a soft starchy tissue containing a vascular structure. in the middle is something that looks like a spinal cord. and it may as well be. this caudex is the plants brain. and like it or not we have to accept it. the caudex has many sockets and countless long thick roots emanate from them. inside each root is a nerve connecting back to the caudexal ensemble. these roots are even mobile. the can pull the plant where it wants to go. or if the plant is in pain it can clench them. the skunk cabbage is capable of feeling pain a reasoning as are all plants. something our hardened hearts refuse to accept. skunk cabbages are especially intelligent. they can not reproduce asexually and the push their seeds away from themselves so they should all be evenly spaced. but they are not... some skunk cabbages are som intertwined that you cannot pull them apart even though they are two seperate caudices. skunk cabbage will pull themselves toward a loved one and will embrace eachother for life. whn they flower the flowers will be one male and one female and the sexual componants will actually face each other. to ensure that only his/her mate can pollinate ot have sex with him or her. this shows that they feel love. they even have preferences to whom they want to spend their lives with. skunk cabbages can live very long lives. some entities are believed to be thousands of years old. but most modern skunk cabbage never will see that lifespan because now we are encroaching upon their sacred homes. skunk cabbages grow in colonies, formed of concentric rings. they are all one family. each ring of parents has a ring of children encircling it so that the children will be watched over and have room to grow and procreate. if one is hurt of if one dies they all know and they all weep. the elder(s) are located directly in the middle of the colony. like a king and queen, but so far away from the ruthless kings of humanity. they love their subjects. if the colony is unable to expand due to deforestation or habitat loss, the colony will began to suffocate. the elders will commit and altruistic suicide. they will let go and push their vulnerable caudices from the earth... and they will die... this is to ensure that their children have room to grow. this selfless act will continue until enough room has been created. the elders are always the first to do this. this is how a human leader should feel. we could learn a lot from the skunk cabbage. in this dying world their is little left of nature... throughout my painful and agonizing existence i have been comforted by these forest sentinels. I cannot bear the thought of losing them. and i would gladly lay down my own life to ensure that their species endures humanity's biological holocaust. skunk cabbage are very artistic. each one has its own artistic style. even though the flowers die back every year they always look the same on an individual plant. the variations are such that they look like different species even though they are all one genus. this shows that they can identify themselves and have artistic preferences.

Me thinks you smoke skunk weed !