Making room for native plants

As we planted daffodil bulbs together, I overheard two fellow garden club members talking about how to refresh the flower choices at a public place we all care about. “Daylilies and hostas,” they agreed. This overheard conversation made me realize that my plant choices have changed significantly in recent years. I’ve become a native plant nut.

Native plants offer fall and winter habitat for wild creatures

    Yes, daylilies and hostas can be counted on to provide attractive flowers and foliage through the summer. They’re tough, and they don’t mind gardeners’ neglect. When I started my garden, I purposely avoided hostas because I thought they looked like cabbages.

Huge leaves are hostas' leading feature

What was the point of a perennial without showy flowers? In the following years, I came to appreciate the large corrugated leaves of clumps of mature hostas, and I planted a number of hostas in my garden. Some have grown into massive shrub-like eminences with leaves as big as those of the elephant ears (Colcasia spp.) featured in my container plantings. Shade gardening calls for desperate measures (and it’s not true that all hostas lack pretty flowers).

    To some gardeners, day lilies are a suburban cliché, but they’ve rescued a narrow sunny bed along our driveway from failure and confusion. I bought a grab bag of mixed colors sometime in the ‘90s, and now they’re pumping out dozens of flowers from July to September in pleasing shades from yellow to dusty pink. They’re not fazed by heaps of shoveled snow in winter nor proximity to baking asphalt in summer.

Daylilies bloom reliably if they get sun, and they come in lots of colors

    So why not daffodils, daylilies and hostas at the front entrance of a treasured building that’s on prominent view to the community? Because now I’d like us to take every opportunity to show what native plants can do. I wouldn’t throw all those beautiful nonnatives on the compost. Heaven forbid! But showcasing some natives can help convince every gardener to include a native or two.
 

New York City's High Line linear park shows how native plants can enhance a designed landscape

That’s the way we’ll restore habitat for native insects and birds. We don’t need everyone to become a native plant purist. I certainly haven’t. But together we can do a lot for native creatures in our ecosystem.

    Many of the classic plants that make up the backbone of American gardens turn out to be natives. I was pleased to learn that among the broad-leaved evergreens we inherited when we moved in, the beautiful mountain laurels (Kalmia latifolia) and the towering Catawba rhododendrons (Rhododendron catawbiense) turn out to be natives. Right now we’re enjoying the bright fall flowers of New England asters (Sympyhotrichum novae-angliae), also natives.

What would fall be without New England asters?

    By choosing the native species in popular plant families, you can have a landscape that serves native creatures and also looks “legible” to traditional gardeners. Instead of those daylilies, we could plant black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia spp.). Coral bells (Heuchera spp.) can provide striking leaves to fill the hosta niche. Going native doesn’t mean giving up bright blooms or handsome foliage.