The Case for Adding Native Plant Diversity into Your Gardens

By Hannah Pippert, Farm Bill Biologist, KS

What does native gardening mean and why is it important? Native plants are not only gorgeous in the preserved prairies and woodlands of Douglas County, but they are starting to make appearances in traditional gardens all throughout the country. The definition of native plant is outlined by the USDA as “adapted to the local climate and soil conditions where they naturally occur”. Native gardening then, is just using native plants in landscaping. The practice of native gardening is important because it adds plant diversity in places that have lost or are rapidly losing biodiversity. This loss is happening across the country as more land is developed for housing and businesses and as farming practices change. Making the decision to include native plants in your landscape is a positive change that anyone can make.

I’m Hannah Pippert, Wildlife Biologist working for Pheasants Forever in Kansas here in Douglas County. I’ve been here for close to a year and have been working in conservation in East/Central Kansas going on three years. These experiences have shaped the way I look at natural and cultivated green spaces. You will often find me standing in fields or in front of a garden attempting to identify plants I find interesting. My love for native plants began when I started to learn their names and continues to grow as I learn more about them.

I love looking at a collection of plants and seeing all of the ecosystem services that are being provided. Blooms covered in bees, butterflies, and beetles all summer mature into food for seed eaters as the days grow shorter. The same stems that supported those flowers become hollow and provide shelter for solitary bees and larvae over the winter. As the days grow longer, plants green up and the wildlife returns to our view.

Native plants provide food and shelter for all kinds of pollinators and birds. Bees, butterflies, beetles, and wasps all rely on pollen and nectar during the growing season (May-October in USDA Plant Zone 6) and use the plant material for shelter during the dormant season (November-April). This is one of the reasons that we ask people to leave the leaves and stems until spring, when all of the beneficial bugs have had time to wake up and move out. Native plants support bird populations all year long as well. Baby birds get most of their nutrition from soft-bodied insects, which are often the larvae of the pollinators. Seeds from plants like echinacea and sunflowers provide food for adult birds during the colder months.

Leadplant, Black-Eyed Susan, and Boneset growing together in Johnson County.

If you are interested in native plant gardening but desire a more formal and structured garden, native plants chosen and placed strategically make beautiful gardens as formal or wild as you want. Listed below I’ve included some plants that do well in a garden setting and where they might be most appropriate.

There are several species of native grasses that stay below waist height and grow in a clump, making them nice anchors in a garden. Little bluestem, the tallest of the grasses I recommend, is a perennial, and continues to get bigger each year. Some other perennial grass options include side oats gramma and prairie dropseed. Both are wispier than little bluestem, stay much shorter, and the grass blades tend to droop outward, creating good cover for birds.

When choosing native flowers, it’s always important to consider structure, bloom time, color variation, and height. This is a limited list and each of the species listed below do well in a garden setting. For groundcover, rose verbena has columnar pink flowers and sprawling leaves that smother weeds before they can come up. Flowers in the 6-18” category include Lanceleaf Coreopsis and Black-Eyed Susan; both are bright yellow with dark centers and can bloom for the entire growing season. In the 1-2’ window, a lovely option is Butterfly Milkweed. The milkweed family is the only egg host for the Monarch Butterfly and the blooms can be any color from bright orange to butter yellow. Moving vertically, Echinacea and Monarda occupy the 3-4’ space and generally have purple flowers. Both provide important nectar and pollen in the summer and shelter in the winter. Echinacea is more spender with long stems holding just one purple flower. Monarda grows in a more dense clump with a shower of light purple flowers at the end of each. The tallest plant that I will recommend today is the lovely Sunflower. The state flower of Kansas has many species to choose from and come in a variety of heights from tall to extremely tall. This will be a late summer bloomer that provides food for birds throughout the winter.

One more element to consider in a garden is a shrub, and we can again look to the prairie for inspiration. White indigo is a native plant that emerges early in the spring and in the early summer blooms form in a white tower. The flowers mature into pods full of seeds that provide food over the winter.

If attracting more wildlife to your home sounds interesting to you but you don’t know where to go to find more information, there is a wealth of resources here in Douglas County, including many knowledgeable people. You can find me in the USDA office in Lawrence along with the local Conservation District. The K-State Extension Master Naturalists and Master Gardeners are also great people to reach out to with questions. There are many digital resources available for identifying plants and learning about what we have in Douglas County, www.kswildflower.org is a database with descriptions of and ranges for many of our plant species here in Kansas. I also regularly use the phone apps Seek and iNaturalist for identifying plants found in the field.