Thank you for choosing native plants!
Your garden is on its way to becoming a safe haven for pollinators, a filter for clean water, and a beautiful, endlessly fascinating place for you and your family.
Here are answers to common questions that will help you make sure your native plants thrive.
How do I choose the right native plants for my garden?
Different plants prefer different conditions, with varying needs for sunlight, water, and soil quality, so you’ll want to select plants that will thrive in the location you’ve chosen for your garden. You can use our plant database to search for the plants that will do best in your garden.
How do I prepare a site for planting native plants?
Before you put your new native plants into the ground, you’ll want to assess what’s already growing there to determine what, if anything, needs to be removed. If your new garden will replace a section of lawn, for example, you have a few options for removing it, depending on how much time you have. The quickest option is to cut out and dig up the section you’re turning into garden. A less labor intensive option is to solarize the grass — basically killing it by covering it with a weighted tarp or with cardboard covered in mulch, which can take a few weeks or months, depending on the time of year.
Once the area is clear of other plants, your site will be ready to plant. There’s no need to add amendments to soil, since native plants typically prefer nutrient poor soil. You’ll especially want to avoid fertilizing as these extra nutrients can disrupt native plants’ typical growing cycles. Your best bet is to leave any leaves that fall in the garden, as those will provide natural mulch.
How do I plant and care for my native plants?
Before planting it is important to keep your potted plants watered so that their roots don’t dry out. You’ll want to plant them in the ground as soon as possible. Simply dig a hole about the size of the pot or plug, slide the plant out of its pot and into the hole, then fill in around it. The top of the plant should be level with the surface of the soil. Once they’re planted, you’ll want to give them a good soaking, and then water them deeply every three to five days, depending on soil and weather conditions, for the first season. Planting in spring or fall is preferred, since lower temperatures and more rainfall help young plants develop strong, deep root systems. When plants are well-established, they will likely not need any additional watering except in times of extreme drought.
Benefits for Environment
Native plants are adapted to our weather patterns. Once established, which takes 2-3 years, plants typically do not require additional waterings. Some of our plants prefer wet soils, and some prefer dry. This is why we’ve examined your sites and chosen the best plants. After initial maintenance of the seedlings, this pollinator garden will need only a rare watering.
Native plants are adapted to our soils. Different soils provide different kinds of nutrients. When planting non-native plants, one may need to add fertilizers to the soil in order for the plant to grow well. Native plants, on the other hand, want exactly what is already there. No fertilizers are necessary. In areas with loose, sandy soils, plants adapted to grow their roots very deep. This reaches down for the fast-draining water and ends up holding the sand in place, preventing coastal erosion.
Native plants are adapted to local insects and pests. A common pest found in our area is the aphid, which can grow in numbers rapidly. To control them, some plants can create their own kind of pesticide, and some plants rely on beneficial insects to take care of the problem. Seeing aphids in the garden is a great sign that praying mantises, lacewings, and lady beetles are on the way! Native plants are also host to many beautiful butterflies, moths, and bees. Black Swallowtails rely on the nectar of Echinacea and the Painted Lady will lay her eggs on sunflowers.
Benefits for Community
There are a host of benefits for the environment with native plants, and there can be huge benefits to the community. For one, native plants bring beauty. As mentioned, they are frequented by beautiful butterflies every season. Many native plants have colorful flowers that attract the human eye along with its pollinators. Some plants even have a pleasant smell to their foliage. Many produce fruit that are loved by songbirds that bring lovely whistling with them, which has been seen to be an antidepressant.
For people, native plants mean a space to breathe. To watch the insects, smell the flowers, and clear the mind. A native garden also provides an opportunity for education. We can teach children to appreciate nature, local wildlife, and sustainability. It can also be taught how important these plants are to our ecosystem at large. Everyone can find something to learn within a native pollinator garden.
tep 2. Creating a border
Measure where you want the bed to be and create a border. This can be simply with a shovel, digging a small ditch to separate it from encroaching weeds. It could also be a weed barrier, small fence, or a line of bricks. The material is less important than accentuating the space as significant to avoid any potential confusion.
Step 3. Preparing the soil
If the soil is very compacted, it may be necessary to break it up before planting the seedlings. This can be done with a shovel, a cultivator, or a hoe.
Step 4. Keeping weeds in check
As mentioned above, weeds will always be present. You can further decrease weed pressure by covering the bare soil. There are many options to choose from, which include weed fabric, mulch like wood chips or straw, or even gravel. Holes will need to be made for the seedlings once you are ready to plant. Care must still be taken to weeding these holes, and any weeds that might pop up elsewhere.
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General Planting Practices
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You’ll want to use a hand trowel to dig a hole about the same size as the pot. Most plants don’t like to be buried past the stems, and this can lead to the seedling failing so the depth is important. Place the plant so the roots will be buried, and the stems will not. Once in the soil without its pot, scoop any loose soil closer and tamp down with one hand on either side of the plant, this will anchor the plant in place.
Once all the seedlings are planted, you’ll want to water them in. Give them a good drink so that there is good root/soil contact and the plants are able to establish themselves well. Do this even if it will rain soon, as transplanting can put a lot of stress on the seedlings.
Maintenance Ideas
The planting of the garden is not the end. The seedlings should be maintained for at least 3 years in order to help guarantee their establishment. Tasks like weeding, watering, and minor pruning are necessary to maintain the area.
Weeding is a task that can feel daunting if not done often enough.
Once weekly weeding nip weeds in the bud when they are young. The task is frequent and light on labor since the weeds are easy to pull and in low quantities.
Weeding can be done more infrequently, such as every 2 weeks or once a month, but the task will require more labor the more time passes between weeding. Waiting longer between weeding can invite more aggressive weeds and invasives to take hold, as many of these species can be replicated from root fragments and are difficult to remove.
Pruning is not a necessary task when it comes to native gardens. One may want to prune some shrubs if they are spreading beyond the garden’s borders. It is best to leave herbaceous (non-woody) plants untrimmed, especially through the fall and winter as many native and beneficial insects will overwinter in the foliage. If choosing to cut back the foliage, do so in the late spring/ early summer when new growth is appearing. Consider “chopping and dropping” - the practice of leaving the trimmed foliage in place, which acts as mulch and allows any potential insects that may remain a chance at survival.
Watering is the most essential maintenance task, practices will determine whether the garden becomes established as planned. After the initial planting, the seedling should be watered daily for the first week or so, and for the next month the soil moisture should be monitored to ensure there is enough moisture for the young seedlings. This can be done by digging a small hole and observing how far down until the soil is moist. If below 3 inches, the seedlings should be watered. You may also use a moisture meter, inserted around 6 inches below the surface. If there is enough rain, the plants do not need water. Ideally, they should receive 1 inch of rain per week. Consider installing a rain gauge to monitor local rainfall.
The final task in maintenance is to enjoy the view. A gardener’s presence is beneficial to the garden in many ways. First, it allows one to get in tune with the plants; their location, their appearance, their growth rate, etc. The gardener’s presence, then, is great for monitoring the plant’s health and any changes that may appear. Pest monitoring is not entirely necessary. The presence of insects, even ones that may be considered pests, are almost always a good sign in a native garden. When insects are observed, the most important step is identification. Unless the insect is identified and confirmed to be officially invasive on Long Island, it should be left in place. A good resource for identification is the iNaturalist website and app- https://www.inaturalist.org/. A good resource to confirm whether a species is invasive is the LIISMA PRISM’s invasive tier list- https://liisma.org/species/liisma-tier-list/.
References:
https://www.perkiomenwatershed.org/benefits-of-native-plants
Benefits for the environment
Native plants are adapted to our weather patterns. Once established, which typically takes 2-3 years, plants generally do not require additional watering. Some of our plants prefer wet soils, and some prefer dry. After initial maintenance of seedlings or young plants, your native plant garden will need only a rare watering.
Native plants are adapted to our soils. Different soils provide different kinds of nutrients. When planting non-native plants, one may need to add fertilizers to the soil in order for the plant to grow well. Native plants, on the other hand, want exactly what is already there. No fertilizers are necessary. In areas with loose, sandy soils, plants adapted to grow their roots very deep. This reaches down for the fast-draining water and ends up holding the sand in place, preventing coastal erosion.
Native plants are adapted to local insects and pests. A common pest found in our area is the aphid, which can grow in numbers rapidly. To control them, some plants can create their own kind of pesticide, and some plants rely on beneficial insects to take care of the problem. Seeing aphids in the garden is a great sign that praying mantises, lacewings, and lady beetles are on the way! Native plants are also host to many beautiful butterflies, moths, and bees. Black Swallowtails rely on the nectar of Echinacea and the Painted Lady will lay her eggs on sunflowers.
What are “ecotypic” plants?
Plants that are considered “ecotypic” to Long Island have evolved right here in our many diverse ecosystems. Over the centuries, they have adapted themselves to our climate and soils, bringing many benefits to the gardener, the environment, and the community.
Benefits for communities
Native plants bring beauty! As mentioned, they are frequented by beautiful butterflies every season. Many native plants have colorful flowers that attract the human eye along with its pollinators. Some plants even have a pleasant smell to their foliage. Many produce fruit that are loved by songbirds that bring lovely whistling with them, which has been seen to be an antidepressant.
For people, native plants mean a space to breathe. To watch the insects, smell the flowers, and clear the mind. A native garden also provides an opportunity for education. We can teach children to appreciate nature, local wildlife, and sustainability. It can also be taught how important these plants are to our ecosystem at large. Everyone can find something to learn within a native pollinator garden.