Easing Into Using More Native Plants

 

Several weeks ago I talked about how non native plants in our gardens don’t do enough things for our insects (and, by extension, also not enough for birds and things that eat insects). Since they don’t contribute sufficiently to the insect life cycle, excessive use of them actually contributes to the decline of insect and bird populations. Extensive use of lawn (which is not native), large mulched areas (they have zero plant life), and non native trees, shrubs, and perennials offer much less food for insects and their young.

The camouflaged looper caterpillar says your yard is feeding the ecosystem

It might sound intimidating to change your landscape so this blog is going to offer some simple suggestions to transition into using more native plants. Select some of these ideas as you have time, effort, and money so that within a year or two you’ll have made good progress.

The front of my house in 2008, sod was laid in 2004

1.      Reduce your lawn: take a good look at how you use your lawn and identify areas to remove or shrink it. Yes, I said look at how you “use your lawn.” If you’re not using it to walk on (to reach other areas of the yard) or to play on then it really is just dead space, often in some of the sunniest places of your landscape (sunny places are perfect for flowers, why let the lawn have it?).

Shrinking the lawn can be as easy as widening the beds adjacent to the lawn, allowing you to plant “real plants” that pollinators can use. That’s been my approach.

2.      Replace a non native tree or a group of shrubs with native choices. Perhaps you have some older landscaping that you’ve wanted to update; swapping them out for native choices is a win for the ecosystem. Swap out something invasive like an ornamental pear (like ‘Bradford’) or privet (Ligustrum) shrubs and your impact is even greater. Swap out Nandina, which has toxic berries for cedar waxwings, and again your change is significant when you replace with native shrub like our viburnums. Plan now to do the work in Oct/Nov when it is the best time to plant trees and shrubs in Georgia.

3.      Add a pollinator garden and fill it with milkweed (Asclepias), Golden Alexander (Zizia) and other host plants, as well as flowers that bloom in spring, summer, and fall. Add some colorful yard art, rocks, and a birdbath to welcome the critters. This is a good replacement for lawn if you needed some inspiration for removing lawn.

4.      Remove an invasive groundcover like Vinca or English ivy and add a more diverse mix of perennials as replacement (a monoculture is the opposite of diversity) and you’ll get the benefit of fewer mosquitoes since they breed in thick, waxy vegetation like those groundcovers. If you have a lot, plan to do 10 feet a week or month until you’ve reached your goal.

Hopefully some of these ideas will help you move forward towards your goal of using more native plants in your landscape. Pick one or more and start your journey to helping make a difference in your area.

Front in 2016, sod corner replaced with a 3-season mix of perennials