As gardening season approaches, consider incorporating native plants in your yard and garden. Even native planting beds or strips can significantly enhance your yard, attract birds, bees and butterflies who pollinate our food crops and provide other important habitat values.
Every Spring we are bombarded by ads promoting pure green grass lawns without weeds or insects. The ads tout these lawns as the American ideal. But is it?
Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home and Nature’s Best Hope, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware disagrees: “In terms of biological activity, a lawn is the least productive of our plantings, yet it is the default landscaping practice in most (U.S.) spaces.”Instead of a sterile, monoculture lawn, I concur with Tallamy that cultivating native plants in your yard is a better approach. Since native plants are specifically adapted to the local soil and climate conditions; they add to our natural heritage and diversity.
Grass is not inherently bad; it is just that maintaining it to mythical standards leads to excessive use of fertilizers, chemicals, and water. These run into our rivers, lakes and oceans, causing water pollution. We can make our yards more diverse and less toxic by landscaping them with native plants.
Tallamy believes in “a new approach to conservation that starts in your yard.” He further states that “We humans have disrupted natural habitats in so many ways and in so many places that the future of our nation’s biodiversity is dim unless we start to save the places in which we live – our cities and, to even a greater extent, our suburbs – with the plants and animals that evolved there.”
The ecological impacts of our lawn-centric approach to yard landscaping are severe. According to Tallamy “Maintaining our lawns in their prestigious, weed-free states has become quite a toxic undertaking. Forty percent of the chemicals used by the lawn care industry are banned in other countries because they are carcinogens.” Lawn watering alone, Tallamy states “accounts for 30% of all water use during the summer in the East and up to 60% in the West.”
Alternatively, having a native landscape requires no chemicals and far less water. Since native plants are adapted to local climates, they can withstand most summer droughts.
Having a native plant landscape significantly enhances your interest in being in your yard. We enjoy the birds, wildflowers, edible berries (like Huckleberries) and dozens of different species of plants that now occupy our yard. A diverse native plant landscape draws you outdoors to check for blooms, to see plants undergo seasonal changes and to watch for birds and butterflies.
Eleven new species of birds have visited our yard since we went native ten years ago, including: Hermit Thrush, McGillivray’s Warbler, Golden-crowned Sparrow, Willow Flycatcher, Cooper’s Hawk, California Scrub Jay, Varied Thrush, Common Redpoll, Band-tailed Pigeon, Chipping Sparrow, and Red-winged Blackbird. We did not have these species before. I know, because I have kept yard lists for 27 years. The food sources, nesting sites and cover provided by native plant landscapes support bird life.
Our native landscape includes a standing snag, dead tree, or as we prefer to call it, a wildlife tree. As Eli Knapp author of Wild Hope Among the Sixth Extinction says of snags “Too many people believe that dead trees must be removed to allow for beautiful lawns and landscapes…however dead trees are buffet tables, lookouts and condominiums” for birds.
Maintenance is still required on native plant landscapes, including weeding, mulching, trimming, and raking, and sweeping organic debris off walkways. Somehow this maintenance is more rewarding, and less unhealthy than running lawn mowers, which I did for years. You won’t miss the air and noise pollution either!
Recipe for going native:
- Create a thoughtful Design. You can research and plan your own design; I have provided resources below. Or you can hire a landscape architect with experience in native plant designs.
- Remove sod. You can do so forcibly with a shovel – a back-breaking job, or via a sod-cutting machine – available for rent or hire. You can also place cardboard on top of the sod for several months, then remove it to dig up the sod. We did this in our back yard, and hired a crew with sod-cutting machine for our front yard. The crew and their machine did our entire yard in several hours, saving time and our backs.
- Stir in topsoil and compost. The mixing part is best done with a roto-tiller but can also be done with a shovel. Keep ibuprofen handy if you choose the second option.
- Install pathways for access. Paving stones, cedar chips or gravel walkways provide access to your new landscape. These can be done artistically with the use of attractive paving stones and winding routes.
- Plant the natives. More and more nurseries stock native plants. Be certain to buy actual native species as there are similar sounding names that are not native species. Planting them is the fun part. Space them properly to ensure their long-term survival and to maximize their beauty.
- Mulch around the new plants to hold in moisture and nutrients while suppressing weeds.
- Watch your new landscape grow. You will find that a diverse, native plant landscape draws you outside more often to check for blooms, to see plants undergo seasonal changes and to watch for birds. Try this at home!
A Brief Selection of Native Plantings for Western Washington: (find native plants for your area below in resources)
| Creeping Oregon Grape | Mahonia Repens |
| Red Columbine | Aquilegia Formosama |
| Tiger Lily | Lilea Columbianum |
| Deer Fern | Blechnum Spicant |
| Maidenhair Fern | Adiantun Alueticum |
| Trillium | Trillium Ovatum |
| Blue Camas | Camassia Quamash |
| Dwarf Redtwig Dogwood | Cornus Stolonifera |
| Bearberry/Kinnickinnick | Arctostaphylos Uva Ursi |
| Large-leaved Avens | Geum Macrophyllum |
Resources:
Internet
Audubon’s Plants for Birds program: http://www.audubon.org/plantsforbirds
Find native plants for your state: https://gardenforwildlife.com/pages/shop-native-plants-by-state?srsltid=AfmBOoogxJB9mOUSnhD3WlI8FHHMLVm8gjOkylLuGkXlk8gH2P4e9SBz
Books/Articles
Bringing Nature Home – How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Douglas W. Tallamy
Easing the Biodiversity Crisis One Flower Pot at a Time by Margaret Renkl, NY Times column
King County, WA Native Plant Guide https://green2.kingcounty.gov/gonative/plan.aspx
Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard, Douglas W. Tallamy
Wildlife Habitat Yards, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/living/habitat-at-home/wildlife-yards
