Problem Solving with Native Plants
By Julie Dennewitz, CGC Horticulturist
Plants are personal. Ask any gardener which flower they love to grow the most and you’ll be treated to a story about their grandmother, their first home, that childhood summer on the coast. The plants in our garden are a scrapbook of our lives, our passion and our heritage. So, with our own century-old scrapbook here at the Civic Garden Center, we understand the important balance between plants that fit the needs of our landscape, plants that bring us joy and plants that nurture the environment (though we firmly believe they can all be one in the same).
A New Way of Planting
As we have stepped into our role as leaders in Cincinnati’s native plant community, we’ve had to find this balance within our own collections in Hauck Botanic Garden, but we’ve also introduced gardeners new and old to the incredible world of landscaping with native plants. These days, our heritage daffodils mingle happily with native spring ephemerals, hostas and hydrangeas flourish in the shade of towering oaks, and butterflies flit across an herb garden brimming with both culinary classics and Ohio wildflowers.
There’s a misconception that native plants are messy or boring. New techniques in sustainable, wildlife-friendly gardening mean practices like leaving the leaves where they fall, waiting until spring to cut down dead stems, letting weeds flower in the lawn and minimizing the use of pesticides. These new ways of gardening represent a radical change from the old days of exerting control upon your yard and bending nature to your will. It can feel scary or strange to abandon old wisdom. But working with nature to protect the ecosystem doesn’t have to mean that you abandon style and design as well. Native plants can serve the same beauty as our favorite ornamental exotics: pops of green in the winter, brilliant reds and oranges in autumn and a rainbow of blooms all spring and summer long.
The trees, flowers and grasses indigenous to Southern Ohio do not have to stay banished to hiking trails and nature preserves. They’re worthy of a spot in the urban or suburban backyard—or even the front yard! Native plants offer enormous ornamental value and can be grown in any style, from abundant cottage gardens to formal, manicured beds. Additionally, they can be used to address some the most common issues Cincinnati homeowners face in their yards. Whether it’s clay soil or dry shade or drainage or erosion, there’s a native plant ready to solve the problem.
Uncommon Plants for Common Problems
Black-eyed Susan, coneflower, aster, beebalm: the ambassadors of native plants, and four tough and hardy problem solvers for local gardeners. Plant these perennials in a neglected corner of hot sun and heavy clay. After one summer, you’ll be hooked. Then turn to that low spot in the lawn that’s always a little soggy. Plant elderberry, buttonbush and swamp milkweed and watch birds and butterflies appear and rejoice. What about the dry and shady ground under a mature tree? Spicebush, snakeroot, wood poppy and wild ginger transform such sad spots into a lush understory.
There’s no job in the garden that a native plant can’t do. And what’s more, because they have specifically evolved for just these conditions, they can grow with less water, less maintenance and less protection. There’s no size, shape, season or color that a native plant can’t satisfy. You can create a landscape with year-round interest under any conditions that will be the pride of your neighborhood—and you can do it with plants that will support local wildlife and repair the environment.
As the saying goes, though, “knowing is half the battle.” For all their advantages, native plants are still uncommon in garden centers, under-used by landscapers and misunderstood by many homeowners. Much like old maintenance techniques, there’s still a lot of resistance against changing the way we plant our gardens. People have emotional connections to classics like lilacs and daylilies and climbing red roses. Or maybe they’re afraid to step out of their comfort zone, and their comfort zone is a boxwood hedge. There’s nothing wrong with keeping old favorites in the landscape, but we can’t overlook the impressive benefits offered by adding native plants!
Turning the Page
That’s where the CGC comes in. Join us May 4 for GrowFest to discover what native plants have to offer you! Get advice from our Ask the Experts booth, take inspiration from our acres of gardens and start your own native garden journey by bringing home a problem-solving native plant. We’ll have a wide selection of spring ephemerals for you to learn about and enjoy. These shade-loving perennials are often the perfect selection for awkward spaces where grass doesn’t grow well, and they provide the habitat and pollinator food source that old fallbacks like English ivy and vinca lack.
If our plants are like a scrapbook of our lives, GrowFest represents a wonderful new page in that book, both for us here at the CGC and—we hope—for our Cincinnati community. We hope to see you there!