Summer sweet - A native alternative to butterfly bush
Recently, fellow Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens team member, Genevieve Schmidt, wrote a post about native plant alternatives for several overused plants found in many gardens in California, where Gen lives, gardens and works as a landscaper.
As Gen mentions in her post,Plant This, Not That: California Natives Edition, by simply looking beyond the every-house-on-my-street-has-one-of-those plants, and instead choosing a similar native plant, gardeners “could be adding wildlife value and getting a similar color or textural effect in the garden”.
Pat Sutton also joined Gen and wrote about eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), in her post Plant This, Not That: New Jersey Natives Edition. And now it’s my turn to jump on the bandwagon and write a post for Connecticut (and New England) gardeners and suggest a native alternative to three non-native staples of many local gardens.
Read about my native plant alternatives to hybrid hollies, butterfly bush and maiden grass at Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens.
It’s funny, when we moved to our new province one of the things I did was look at what plants people had in their yards to see what worked well here. But rarely were any of those plants native. Hurray to you and your fellow bloggers for expanding our horizons.
Marguerite, I think we’ve all done that quick look around to see what grows well in the area. I was driving around today and went down an older residential street and there were 6 houses in a row that all had mature red-leaved Japanese maples planted in the same spot in their gardens. It was funny to see how each house, regardless of style, had the same tree.
Debbie, what a great post! Your photos and words do so much to encourage people to look at their local native plants. The bluestem grass is so gorgeous!!
Gen, I’m glad you enjoyed the post. The little bluestem is a great plant, I’m not sure why it’s not used for often in this area. Planted in mass, it is a stunning sight.
I plan to do a NY version soon on Beautiful Wildlife Gardens…loved the post!!
Donna, I’m looking forward to reading your choices for NY gardeners, since I’m sure some will be appropriate for my garden, too.
I’m currently reading Noah’s Garden, so this is right in line with that sort of thinking.
Ricki, I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t read Noah’s Garden yet…I’m going to add it to my winter reading list now.
Great suggestions, Debbie. Hopefully more nurseries will begin to carry Ilex opaca along with thier other holly choices.