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Entry bubble Landscaping with Native Species

By: Joanne | April 08, 2008 | Category: Fun

The weather is finally starting to warm up and I was so happy to spend most of my weekend outside digging in the yard and garden. I’m preparing to plant, buying seeds and considering landscape improvements I can make to our property.

When I walk into the garden center I’m always thrilled by so many beautiful plants and I want them all! Experience is teaching me though, that this isn’t always the best strategy. These days I’m trying to put more thought into what to plant and my focus now is on native species. By taking care of the lawn and garden properly, I can save money, time, and help the environment. I don’t know about you, but those are all things I’d like to do.

Native plants are the plants that occur naturally in your region. Since native species are already well suited to live in your region, you’ve already won the first battle – it wants to live in your yard and shouldn’t require a lot of attention to keep alive. Also, native species, especially those with berries, fruits and flowers will encourage the butterflies and birds to visit. butterfly on a coneflower

It takes a little research to find the plants and wildflowers suited to your area, and your state Natural Resources Department can help you identify plants native to your region.

Whatever you do, be careful not to buy an invasive species for your yard. We’ve got a lot of multiflora rose growing on our property. We didn’t put it there, but I don’t know how we’re going to get rid of it all. …maybe I need one of those landscaping flamethrowers?

| View Comments [3] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: bush   flower   greenscape   invasive   joanne   native   noxious   plant   shrub   tree  

Comments (3):

blue comment bubble Posted by Citizen Jmaximus on April 08, 2008 at 01:08 PM EDT

I planted a buch of Rosa Multiflora in my back yard as a hedge/barrier, they stuff grows great but is a deadly hazard trying to trim it. One guy in my area let his front yard go natural, the neighbors complained to the city, they said it was weeds.

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blue comment bubble Posted by @marlinex on April 09, 2008 at 02:59 AM EDT

This is an interesting post! I just saw something on our local Sacramento, CA news that talked about planting native species being beneficial for a number of different reasons including:

Water conservation: Using drought resistant native plants helps cut down on water usage, especially in the hot summer months in CA.

Pest control: Using native plants attracts insects that help to control the pest population (i.e. aphids) reducing the need for pesticides that can end up in our water supplies.

Now if I could only get someone in to re-landscape our yard!

Love this blog, BTW.

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blue comment bubble Posted by @marlinex on April 09, 2008 at 09:48 AM EDT

We're all glad that you enjoy reading GovGab, and if it seems like re-landscaping your whole yard is more that you can handle, you can do it like me - just a little at a time. And with a full-time job and two young children, believe me, I'm moving at a much slower pace than I'd like. I figure that it's going to be GORGEOUS by about the time I'll be moving into the nursing home. In the meantime I try to not let the weeds get me down : )

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