Native Landscapes

Landscaping with Natives

Make your yard beautifully unique and support pollinators and people!

When Nature is allowed to guide a landscape, we see a vast diversity of plants based on the soil type and influenced by the availability of water and the movements of wildlife. Taking away any human influence there would be a balance to this landscape. A balance of life moving in a circular, never-ending cycle of abundance. This is the essence of sustainability.

Take a look around your neighborhood. What do you see? Grass, grass, and more grass and houses framed by the same shrubs. Maybe, if you are lucky, you have a tree or two and you get 3 guesses on the type of tree…..red maple, live oak, or crape myrtle.

This landscape was designed to benefit someone other than the residents now living in that house. It’s claimed to be low maintenance but a yard full of grass is anything but low maintenance. Grass is typically the thirstiest plant in the landscape and often needs insecticides, fertilizers, and mowing to make it look like the green abyss known as a lawn.

How did Americans come to think a monoculture of green was an essential aesthetic to the dream home? Properties used to have purpose. Yards were filled with food gardens and flowering plants that supported the bees and butterflies needed to pollinate the garden to increase the yields of fruits and veggies.  Trees were planted to shade the home from the sun’s hot rays.

Today, many are realizing the benefits of reducing the lawn and bringing natives back into the landscape. Native plants don’t require fertilizers nor a lot of water. Native plants do not contain harmful modifications like neonicotinoides that poison our precious pollinators.  Natives bend to the seasonal changes and deliver appropriate color and texture to our yards. Natives support wildlife and if nurtured, a diverse population of ladybugs, bees, snails, birds, and beautiful crawling things will create a balance in your yard.  That balance will even take care of those undesirables reducing the use of poisons inside the home.