Go native with your yard

Fun plants such a rattlesnake master, compass plants and coneflowers thrive in drought conditions. 

Prairie plants in particular send roots deep into the ground to find water.

Have you noticed that all is not well with Danville yards this Spring?    Brown and bare spots in lawns; dead or dying bushes; and stressed looking trees do nothing to enhance the beauty or value of property.  Some may think that this damage was unavoidable due to last year’s drought, but there is an another way to garden, a green alternative, that could make all the difference in how your garden survives weather extremes in the future.

Picture for a moment a new landscape – a native landscape.  Here lawns are reduced to small play areas for children.  Instead of a sea of grass, swaths of yellow, red, purple and pink flowers thrive all summer long with hardly any maintenance or watering.  Beautiful native grasses sway in the wind.  Hardy shrubs delight humans with a burst of spring color in the spring and provide birds with a feast of berries in the winter. 

If this sounds too good to be true it isn’t.  Native plant gardeners throughout the country are learning that their gardens are not just beautiful but wonderfully practical. They rarely need watering, thrive in drought conditions and attract birds and other wildlife.  Contrary to what some people think, native plant gardens do not look like overgrown weed patches.  Done correctly, they provide a stunning display in your yard and garden.  Some native plants that you may know already are coneflowers, bee balm, asters, black-eyed susans, dogwoods, sunflowers, trilliums, columbines and magnolias, to name a few.  There are native plants for any setting – sun, shade, wet or dry areas.

Native plants are not hard to find.  Many common native plants and cultivars of these plants are available at local nurseries or in gardening catalogs.  Shooting Star Nursery in Georgetown specializes in native plants and even has rare, hard to find varieties.  Look also for special sales of native plants such as the native plant sale on September 6, 2008 at the Salato Wildlife Center in Frankfort. 

How do you start your native plant garden?  You may want to start by just planting some native plants into your existing garden or yard.  Or select a small area where your lawn is not doing well, cover it with newspaper for a while to kill the remaining grass, and plant native plants directly in the ground with small plants near the front and taller plants toward the back.  Watering, mulching and weeding are necessary at first, but after a couple of years you will find that the garden practically takes care of itself.  Your patience will be your reward.

For more information about native plant gardening, check out the gardening and plant sections of the Danville Library, or search for native plant links on the internet.  One good source is the website www.for-wild.org.  The Boyle County Extension Office is an excellent resource.  They will also help you with soil analysis to see if your yard needs any special treatment before planting.

 Contributed by Linda Porter