Editor’s Note: April is Washington’s Native Plant Appreciation Month. To celebrate, I am pleased to feature guest blogger, Betsy Dudash.
Betsy Dudash is a Wenatchee-based landscape horticulturist and designer. She shares her love of native plants through her designs, her continuing education classes at Wenatchee Valley College, and other lectures. Betsy is a Wenatchee Naturalist. She serves on the Board of Sustainable Wenatchee, writing sustainability-oriented articles and blogs, and paints. She can be reached at SeasonsUrbanHorticulture@gmail.com.
Every ornamental plant species now widely cultivated in large parts of the world is native to somewhere. Think about it. In fact, many of the most popular species are native to North America, including purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan, coreopsis, rhododendron, oakleaf hydrangea, and Virginia sweetspire. Why, then, do some people insist that native plants are unattractive and don’t belong in your home landscape?
I think the answer has to do with not knowing what plant to put where and not understanding that plants often behave differently–and look better–under cultivation than they do in nature. My goals are to help you begin to understand the process of selecting attractive natives that will thrive in your yard and to introduce you to a few of my personal favorites.
To choose native plants that will thrive in your yard or landscape, you first need to do a site analysis. This isn’t as hard as it sounds. You really just need to do an honest assessment of your soil type(s), areas of sun and shade/part shade, water availability (do you have irrigation, or will you need to rely on hoses or soaker hoses?), and the kinds of native plants that are found nearby. Let’s use my yard as an example: we have very sandy soil, part shade in most of the backyard—but it’s mostly brick and concrete anyway—full shade on the north side of the house, morning shade followed by blazing sun in the front yard, and mostly sunny in the no-man’s land between the driveway and the west side of the house. We don’t have irrigation. We live close to downtown, so the shrub-steppe is our closest ecosystem.
At left: Rosy pussytoes are thriving in the hot dry gravel between the house and the driveway. Upper right: Showy milkweed re-emerging this spring Lower right: Hairy goldenaster in spring; it bloomed all summer and into fall.
We moved into our house just over a year ago. The previous owners had removed the lawn in our tiny front yard. Not quite a clean slate, because they also put in a bunch of random plants, many of which have since died because they were half-buried. So, my landscape project will take a few years. I got a good start last spring with some plants from Derby Canyon Natives in Peshastin: blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata), snow buckwheat (Eriogonum niveum), some penstemon (there are so many to choose from!), hairy goldenaster (Hetherotheca villosa), showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa), narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis), rosy pussytoes (Antenaria rosea), and western goldenrod (Solidago lepidus). I used groups of the relatively low-growing blanketflower, snow buckwheat, penstemon, and hairy goldenaster to create layers of seasonal color and texture in the front yard.
Whatever you decide to plant, you still need to follow basic design principles. Plant in groups of 3, 5, 6, or more, except for a few specimens. I’ll probably put a basin wildrye (Leymus cinereus) on each side of the front steps and a single serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) to the left of the front porch. For the record, I think every house should have a serviceberry if you have space for it. Arrange your plants in layers, with the shorter plants by walkways and paths and taller plants behind them. It’s also important to follow Firewise design principles, which means that you shouldn’t put flammable plants such as sagebrush or evergreens anywhere near your house.
An easy way to introduce native plants into your landscape is to think about the non-native plant you were considering, then find a native that shares the desired characteristics. To do that, you can ask a professional (the helpful staff at Derby Canyon Natives, for instance), consult a book such as Real Gardeners Grow Natives by Eileen M. Stark, which is written for gardeners in the Pacific Northwest, or find other resources at the library or on-line.
For example, if you love Japanese maples, try a Douglas maple (Acer douglasii), which is also small, is very ornamental, and is more tolerant of heat and drought than Japanese maples. Do you look forward to seeing flowering dogwoods bloom every spring? Well, the flowering dogwood is an eastern understory species with a shallow root system, which means it can’t survive here without consistent irrigation. Why not plant a native serviceberry instead? Looking for an ornamental grass? Consider Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis) or pinegrass (Calamagrostis rubescens). Really want an evergreen groundcover? Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) is a wonderful choice.
One of the most powerful reasons to introduce native plants into your landscape is the fact that insects of all kinds, including pollinators, co-evolved with them and rely on them to maintain healthy populations. Other species such as birds and mammals need plants, too. The best way to maintain the natives in your landscape is to let them go to seed at the end of the season. The birds will thank you. Wait till warm weather in the spring to cut back perennials and grasses, and you might just be rewarded with some baby plants to fill any bare spots.
Resources:
• Derby Canyon Natives Plant Nursery, Peshastin, Washington,
• Washington Native Plant Society, “About Native Plant Gardening,” https://www.wnps.org/native-gardening.
• Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy, Timber Press, 2009, “Provides the rationale behind the use of native plants, a concept that has rapidly been gaining momentum. . . . The text makes a case for native plants and animals in a compelling and complete fashion,” according to The Washington Post.
