Native Plant Gardens For Everyone

Note: Stephanie Barelman is the founder of the Bellevue Native Plant Society. The views expressed are her own.

As a conscientious citizen and mother and dreamer on planet Earth, I have become more and more enamored with the garden. The garden holds so many accolades for its beauty, its emotional weightlessness, but what compels me more than ever is the desperation in which nature currently lives- wildlife, both flora and fauna, in the very little free spaces we give it. The garden becomes a piece of resistance, an insistence that room must be made for the other lifeforms that share our cosmic home.

I have seen both vitriol from native purists and traditional gardeners alike when it comes to what we should plant in the garden and what kind of pest practices we should take to preserve it. Antagonism is an easy out to address our unease over how things are. The true approach to solving a crisis, to build anything meaningful, to enact real and lasting change has a welcoming demeanor and an ease in getting started.

I’m not exploring the why’s of a native plant garden or conservation in this post, however if you are new to using native plants in the garden you may want to check out the work being done by the The Xerxes Society, read one of the many articles on native plant importance like this piece from Audubon, or look into the famous entomologist Doug Tallamy’s book Nature’s Best Hope. I will say that the native plant craze is not an overrated one. Pollinators comprised of insects, birds, and small mammals have been massively threatened by the destruction of habitat for cropland or other development and the subsequent sterilization of urban and suburban areas to be weed-free, pest-free, and primarily filled with lawn and exotic plants.

There is a native garden for everyone. Here in the midwest, specifically in Bellevue, Nebraska, we have a unique ecosystem where oak savanna/woodland meets tallgrass prairie. Our native garden here will look much different to a native garden in Florida or the Pacific Northwest. While some folks will employ straight-native plants in their garden work (latin name only with no variety name following) and even turn large swaths of their property into prairie or micro-prairie, others will gladly welcome select cultivars of native plants (known to some as nativars,) while others still will incorporate existing plantings or pollinator plants into the matrix. Some may densely plant just a few different types of natives and some may sporadically utilize many. Our group supports all approaches to a native garden, in the acknowledgement that every regionally native plant added to the landscape is a win for nature.

Granted, there are plants that are better suited to “wild areas”, mostly plants that sucker and form thickets or thorny/toxic natives like poison ivy, dogbane, greenbrier, or the native crabapple. Most natives are suitable for use in suburban gardens and a good way to read up on individual plants is through the Prairie Moon Nursery website, where you can read descriptions of plant characteristics as well as view a BONAP range map for each plant species.

We will continue to encourage native plants in the landscape- and you can too- by using native plants in the garden; displaying signage; seeking out local suppliers of native plants and seed; supporting local and national conservation efforts; lobbying local, state, and federal governments for environmental change; limiting pesticide and herbicide use (both harmful to native wildlife); and participating in society events and meetings to encourage others and learn more.