Plant Natives

Congratulations! You recognize that natives are valuable additions to your landscape and are ready to watch them spread their natural beauty. These sample garden templates, to the right, show you how natives could work together in a specific environment. At least one is in your backyard!

 

Plant the right plants in the right environment. Never introduce invasive plants into your landscape that will aggressively spread off your property and invade native plant communities. Invasive plants can drastically alter ecosystems and give you and your neighbors maintenance headaches for years to come.

 

Choose plants that will grow well at the site: moist or dry, shady or sunny, acidic or neutral soil. A good trick to guide your plant selection is to observe which native plants are thriving nearby. Visit here for lists, but more is available from plant nurseries, catalogs, books, or the Internet.

 

Mulch and compost your leaves and grass clippings to provide a slow release of nutrients to improve your soil fertility. Chemical fertilizers often provide too many nutrients too quickly for native plants, and this flush of nutrients gives weeds a competitive edge. Proper site preparation begins with a soil test before applying fertilizer.

 

Use organic pest control. Keep the soil covered to prevent weeds. Remove invasive plants nearby. Take out severely diseased plants, or ones with insect infestations. Many native plants attract beneficial insects which help control pests, so try creating habitat for “good bugs.”

 

Protect your property against invasive plants. The best insurance against future problems is to avoid the use of known invasive plants and educate others about the problems of invasives. Invasive plants should be avoided because they can escape cultivation and aggressively move into surrounding areas. For more information on invasive plants, visit here.

 

Minimize landscape disturbance. Invasive plants thrive on bare soil and disturbed ground where the native plant community has been displaced. The key to controlling invasives is to protect healthy native plant communities. Replace invasive plants with native species.

 

Create a land management plan for maintenance over time. Lawns, gardens, meadows and woodlands are maintained using vastly different techniques, but they all will need to be monitored and have invasive plants removed. Land management plans provide guidelines on monitoring, assist in prioritizing removal and prevention goals and help track the progress of control work.

 

Do not remove native plants from the wild. Taking native plants from the wild depletes native populations. Also, many wild-collected plants do not survive transplanting. Prevent poaching of plants by making sure that plants you buy are propagated at a nursery, or by starting plants yourself from a local seed supply (Collect seed only with the property owner’s permission). Ask a DCNR forestry expert for a list of native plant and seed sources in Pennsylvania. For contact information, visit www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/dcontacts.aspx

 

Protect native plant communities and minimize habitat destruction. Finally, and most importantly, conserve already existing areas of native vegetation as a whole, functioning unit. The easiest, least expensive, and best way to conserve Pennsylvania’s plant heritage is to protect existing native plant communities from earth moving, trampling, and other disturbances. If disturbance is necessary, strive for minimum habitat destruction. In some cases, ecological restoration may be necessary, which can include planting native species, removing invasive or introduced species, controlling erosion, and loosening soil compaction.

 

Planting native species is just one of many steps you can take to practice backyard conservation. Try these other practices that nurture wildlife, reduce carbon emissions, conserve water, and protect air and water quality:

• Minimize lawn area – to reduce runoff (lawn is less permeable than planted beds), the need for mowing, and to replace monoculture with a diversity of plantings.
• Use rain barrels and rain gardens – to save water and promote infiltration and decrease runoff
• Compost - to reduce waste and create organic soil amendments that naturally enrich the soil
• Reduce or eliminate use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers - to protect wildlife, human health, and water quality
• Plant to maximize the natural heating and cooling of your home – to save energy and reduce carbon emissions. Planting evergreens on the north and west side of the home (to screen cold winter winds) is an example.

Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

www.dcnr.state.pa.us

© 2007 Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources