Plants native to DC-area could offer greener alternative to water-hungry lawns

DC-area plants could offer greener alternative to water-hungry lawns

Your yard could require less water, help defend against erosion and support wildlife. All you have to do is plant native flora.

At the in Silver Spring, Maryland, staffers guide plant lovers who may want to start with one corner of the garden or convert their entire lawn to a meadowlike landscape dotted with wildflowers. The co-op provides retail sales, and also offers maintenance, design and installation of native gardens.

Will Coleburn, the design and plant-sourcing lead for the cooperative, welcomes every visitor to the retail space and is quick to reassure them that no one’s judging their selections.

“We’re not purists,” he said. “If you love some things that aren’t native, it’s totally OK to have some of those; preferably if they’re not on invasive species watchlists.”

Birders may want to consider adding native species to their landscapes.

“A lot of people love birds in their gardens, and if you want to attract birds to your garden, native plants are a great way to do that,” he said.

Coleburn said the look of a native landscape is decidedly different from the carefully cultivated green lawn that’s been the traditional favorite in many areas. Instead of a formal lawn, the yard converted to native plants will have “a little looser, wilder look that can also be really functional and require less maintenance,” he said.

That doesn’t mean a lack of color, Coleburn said. The variety of native plants can provide colors from spring through fall.

“There’s a lot of showy natives that are also pretty easy,” Coleburn said. “One that immediately comes to mind for sunny areas would be rudbeckia, or some of our coreopsis which are really lovely, fairly hardy plants but that have a more traditionally ornamental aesthetic.”

One familiar rudbeckia is the Maryland state flower, the Black-eyed Susan.

Among the candidates for a showy fall flower, Coleburn recommends symphyotrichum oblongifolium.

“I know that is a mouthful with the botanical Latin,” Coleburn said.

It’s a plant that’s more commonly known as the aromatic aster.

“It’s going to do great in full sun to partial shade,” he said. “It’s going to be covered with purple flowers. It’s very showy in that way, in the fall.”

While guiding customers through the selection of flowers and shrubs at Swamp Rose Co-op, Coleburn points out that “no garden is maintenance free. That’s what makes it a garden 鈥� is human intervention.”

But he said there are a number of advantages to adding or switching to native landscapes.

Before making any big conversion, Coleburn advises homeowners who live in areas with homeowners associations, or HOAs, to be “aware of kind of what the regulations are for your community is always a great to start.” And he said that can start with a conversation with the HOA board.

“If you’re concerned about needing to maintain a more traditional landscape aesthetic, that’s still possible to do with native plants,” Coleburn added. “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It doesn’t have to be crazy wild.”

Lawns are intensive in terms of the need for water, fertilizer and pesticide use, Coleburn said.

“If you can get rid of that and get something beautiful that is functional for wildlife and that has flowers, I think that is something that people really appreciate,” Coleburn said.