Choose Native Plants This Spring
Echinacea purpurea ‘Kim’s Knee High’
Purple Coneflower
Planting natives is one of the most important steps a home owner can take to increase local biodiversity right here in Hampton Roads. There are many wonderful plants to choose from, including beautyberry, native ferns, and purple coneflowers. These natives will dress up your landscape and simultaneously benefit the environment and local wildlife.
Why Are Native Plants Important?
For a home owner who loves outdoor living, one of the key reasons to plant natives is the primary role natives play in producing food for our feathered friends. I’m not only talking about the fruits and seeds, I’m talking about nature’s fabulous collection of caterpillars and cutworms, leaf beetles and planthoppers. Without native plants, these local insects will have nothing to eat. In turn, without a steady diet of insect protein, many of our local bird species will struggle as well.
Why Do Caterpillars Need Native Plants?
Leaf chemistry. Well, that’s one reason among many, but perhaps it’s the most critical. Plants don’t sit idly by while the local plant predators make meals out of their foliage. Plants know how to play defense. They produce leaves which are typically toxic and distasteful. If they didn’t, native plants would be devoured and perhaps driven to extinction. Some of our native caterpillars (and other insects) have evolved digestion strategies that foil their favorite food plants. They have enzymes and other adaptions that can detoxify the leaves of some local plants.
Very few of these insect specialists can eat non-native plants. So when our yards are populated with azaleas from China, trees from Japan and shrubs from England, there is no food for our Monarch caterpillars or our other insect specialists. The sad truth is that when caterpillars and other insects are scarce so are many marvelous species of birds.
What’s the Answer?
The solution is straightforward and simple. We just have to know which plants were growing on the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain before we transformed the landscape with alien grasses and ornamentals. You can visit the Virginia Native Plant Society’s website and download a brochure for a list of many important native plants.
It’s fairly easy to obtain beautyberry, inkberry, waxmyrtle, sweetspire, purple coneflowers, black-eyed susans, cinnamon ferns, Christmas ferns and many others from local nurseries. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, give us a call, we can help you decide which plants will work best for your landscape. If you would like us to design, deliver and install a native section to your garden, we can do that too.
Your yard can be both beautiful and functional. Take some time to understand the key role that native plants play in our local ecology. It’s not an exaggeration to say that our environment literally sustains our economy. Let’s recognize the importance of our native green associates and invite nature into our yards. It’s the right thing to do.
Marvelous! We definitely need more native species planted throughout Hampton Roads. Driving through our neighborhoods or across town, I’m alarmed at the scarcity of plant materials (green space) and the abundance of concrete sprawling across what used to be a forest. Our natural environment is being strained to the breaking point.
And what are we doing with the green space we can control? We are planting exotic species that are native to far off lands. The least we can do as individual homeowners is to reclaim our own little piece of the local ecology by landscaping with native species. In doing so, we transform our yards into havens for native insects, birds, and other wildlife.
Thanks for commenting. Since planting more natives in my own landscape, I’ve noticed a significant increase in number and variety of birds that visit my yard. If you enjoy birdwatching, you can’t go wrong with planting a native tree like serviceberry.
Would native plants require less maintenance? It seems logical to think so since the soil is the right balance and the wildlife does the fertilizing and trimming.
As a general rule native plants require less maintenance. They are usually well-adapted to local temperature, rainfall, and soil conditions. However we need to be careful when selecting species to place around our homes. Often we have created hostile micro-climates, too shaded, too wet, etc…
The local wildlife will certainly benefit from native plantings. Determining the proper amount of fertilizer is fraught with difficulties, but it’s best to take a soil sample and have someone knowledgeable about the intricacies of soil chemistry interpret the results.
With good species selection and proper placement you may never have to trim your native plants. However most suburban landscape have plants placed too close together and so annual trimming will still be necessary.
Interesting article.
I agree that the native plants definitely attract more birds, but are they healthier?
Hi Maya,
Measuring plant health is not an easy task. But it’s reasonable to assume that native plants have all the necessary traits to survive and reproduce successfully in their native habitat. These natives have co-evolved with other local plants, insects, and larger animals. They are accustomed to the local climate and weather. If they are sited correctly (as opposed to a parking lot island) they should thrive and require much less maintenance.
Many birds can eat the fruits of natives as well as non-native plants. But more importantly, they need high protein insects as food for their rapidly growing chicks. Local insect specialists need local plants, they simply can’t eat exotic plants, for much the same reason you and I cannot eat grass. If local insects have less to eat, there will be fewer insects and therefore bird mortality will be higher.