Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
Healthy Gardens. Healthy Planet
Vincent Vizachero is a native plant advocate and consultant in Baltimore. His focus is on lecturing, environmental education, social media management, and grant-writing. You might think the fact that studied Economics at the College of William & Mary in Virginia and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business would make him a bit of a geek. You'd be right. You can keep up with him on Facebook and Twitter.
The use of native plants in residential landscapes is critical to the protection of our wildlife. Among native plants, some of the most valuable are our trees. Native trees provide fruit, nuts, and seeds in addition to acting as host plants to a huge number of butterflies and moths. History is often our guide when [...]
If a group of native plants can be considered as simultaneously obscure and baffling, it would surely be our native sedges. The USDA PLANTS database lists more than 500 species of Carex native to North America, but only a handful of these are readily available in the nursery trade and even fewer are commonly used [...]
For the past few days, the National Wildlife Federation – who describe themselves as working “to inspire Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future” – has been weathering a firestorm of criticism for their decision to partner with Scotts Miracle-Gro – who describe themselves as “the world’s largest marketer of branded consumer lawn and [...]
Many of the writers on this blog have been contributing to a series of posts called “Plant This, Not That“. In each case, we highlight a couple of plants that are invasive and/or overused and then suggest some great native alternatives. In my most recent contribution, I focused on native groundcovers for Baltimore. However, I [...]
After a lecture I gave a few months ago on native plants for Baltimore, one of attendees wondered on his blog about sustainable urban groundcovers. I’ve been meaning to take a stab at his question, so here goes! Specifically, Chris asked: “So, what are the best groundcovers for the Mid-Atlantic? Again, the idea here is [...]
This past June I tackled the thorny topic of native plant cultivars. Native plant enthusiasts have a broad spectrum of opinions about these versions of native plants, selected and bred to suit the needs and/or desires of gardeners. In that earlier post, I talked about some of the ways that these native plants may suit [...]
Using plants native to your area can be useful in many ways: native shrubs and trees provide excellent support for local wildlife, they convey a clear sense of regional identity, and they are often quite beautiful. One of the joys of gardening with native species is that these species provide this array of benefits simultaneously: [...]
In most parts of the country, I’d wager, a gardener intent on using native plants will have hundreds of species readily available to them. For one thing, many very common ornamental and landscape plants are North American natives: even the most bland of big-box garden centers here in the Mid-Atlantic will often carry plants like [...]
Most gardeners end up planting a lot more flowers than shrubs, more shrubs than small trees, and more small trees than canopy trees. In part this flows from the shorter lifespan of herbaceous perennials, and in part this flows from the desire of gardeners to have “instant impact“. Because of their greater mature biomass, however, [...]
Native plant cultivars are a vexing topic. My experience has been that gardeners who are increasing their use of native plants are likely to find the topic of native plant cultivars to be confusing, and for good reason. There is a tremendous amount of variation in the traits for which cultivars are maintained, how the [...]
