By Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp

Native plants are gaining in popularity, especially with so many gardeners interested in supporting pollinators and other native insects and wildlife. So how can you landscape with native plants? You first have to plan your yard, and we’ll show you how.

Know your land

Before you can decide which native plants you want in your Kentucky native plant garden, you have to know your growing conditions. Is the area in full sun or shade? Does the soil stay wet or is it dry? Is the soil alkaline or acidic?

A good first step is to take a soil test. (You can contact your county extension agent for more information.) This determines the pH of the soil and identifies the minerals and nutrients it has or is missing. The results have recommendations on how to correct any problems. Info like the pH (acid or alkaline soil) also guides your plant selection.

Learn which USDA Zone your plot of land is in. Most of Kentucky is in Zones 6a and 6b. Small sections of the southwest are in USDA Zone 7. These zones tell you which plants are hardy enough to survive our Kentucky winters.

Pay attention to the sun. As the sun moves through the season, the amount of light that hits the ground changes. What starts out sunny in spring could be dense shade by summer as trees leaf out.

Look at the competition other plants may present for your Kentucky native plant garden. Will tree roots be a problem? They win when it comes to sucking up nutrients like water. Plus, digging through them can damage or kill a tree. Some conifers tend to be messy, dropping needles, which can make plants underneath unsightly.

Put pencil to paper or use a landscape app

Make a rough sketch of the shape of the garden you want. Note where sidewalks and structures are and where trees and shrubs are. Is there a water source nearby?

Look at how the light moves through the space – is part of a section in full sun while a portion stays in shade? That garden bed may need a mix of shade- and sun-loving plants.

Start small

Designing and planting a new garden bed can be a lot of work. The biggest job will be the soil preparation. You can always extend a bed every year or two until it’s the size and look you want. Besides saving energy, starting small also conserves cash.

Select your native plants

Some native plants are more garden-worthy than others. Although they may have all the benefits gardeners want in native plants, such as attractive leaves and colorful fruit, they may be aggressive and spread beyond their space. Others may be prone to disease, adding to the maintenance and worries about the plants.

The Kentucky Native Plant Project has a comprehensive listing and descriptions of plants, from spring ephemerals to trees. The Kentucky Native Plant Society has a list of plant suppliers and service providers.

Select perennials that provide a sequence of flowers through the seasons. Start with spring-blooming perennials such as columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), followed by summer-blooming garden phlox (P. paniculata), followed by asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) in fall.

Many native shrubs, such as Viburnum, will have spring flowers, attractive summer foliage, fall color, and fruit that persists into winter. Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) has round balls for flowers, colorful fall fruit, and leaves. Winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata), a deciduous holly, has red fruit that stands out in the winter landscape.

For trees, look at the Kentucky coffee bean (Gymnocladus dioicus), river birch (Betula nigra), honeylocust (Gleditsia triacanthos), red maple (Acer rubrum), and white oak (Quercus alba) as good shade tree selections. Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis), and downy serviceberry (Amelanchier arbora) are excellent native ornamental trees.

Design tips for a native plant garden

Once you have plants selected, follow a few basic design tips.

• Avoid planting perennials as singles. Rather, plant them in groups of three or five for the best show.
• Put tall plants in the back of the bed, with medium-height plants in the middle and short plants in the front.
• The plant placement can be symmetrical or asymmetrical. Maybe a stand of garden phlox at one end will be balanced at the other with a stand of ornamental grass, such as little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium).
• Texture and form are also important. Flowers last only for a short time compared to leaves and the form of a plant.
• Make sure plants will fit in the garden space once they’ve reached their mature size. It’s hard to cram a 6-foot-wide shrub in a 4-foot-deep bed. Planting for the mature size reduces long-term maintenance.

Other considerations

A lot of people think native plants will survive with little or no care, but that’s not true. Plants are living things and need a little TLC to thrive, bloom, flower, fruit, and shade as you want.

Water newly planted specimens at least once a week. New plants need roughly 1 inch of water every week to 10 days. Most native perennials do not need a lot of fertilizer. Too much fertilizer or soil that is too rich will cause perennials to flop. During exceptionally dry periods, water trees, shrubs, and perennials.

Soil prep is probably the hardest part of planning a garden, especially if you’re a beginner. You’ll need to remove any grass and weeds and add compost, chopped leaves, or other natural amendments to the soil.

Digging the soil for a new bed may unearth decades-old weed seeds, which will grow once exposed to light and water. Consider bringing in a planter’s mix from a local landscape supply company.

A lot of gardening is trial and error. Sometimes plants work out and sometimes they don’t. Don’t be afraid to pull out what you don’t like and plant something new. The more experience you have the better able you’ll be to select plants that work in your beautiful landscape design of native plants.

Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp is an award-winning Indianapolis-based garden writer, editor, and speaker. Known as a “hortiholic,” she frequently says her eyes are too big for her yard. She blogs at hoosiergardener.com.

By Joyce Fry

It’s spring now, but neither the oak (Quercus sp.) nor the white ash tree (Fraxinus americana) in our backyard are sprouting new growth; nor will they. Those trees are dead and are now called snags. Most people cut down dead trees, feeling that they have outlived their usefulness. I take issue with that! Let me explain.

When we first bought our house in the rural northern Franklin County, KY area, the oak was already a snag. Being avid birders, we noticed that its dead branches and trunk frequently hosted several interesting birds well within view of our picture window. We determined that the oak snag was far enough away from our house that it should not pose a hazard, so we elected not to cut it down. Instead, after many years of coaxing, we succeeded in training a trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans) to climb up its trunk nearly to its crown, about 40 feet.

Trumpet creeper, also known as Trumpet vine, is native to Kentucky. It sports lovely orange, red-orange to red tubular flowers from May through August. Ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) (Kentucky’s most common hummingbird species) visit the tubular flowers to feast on its nectar, and in the process, they cross-pollinate its flowers. A pretty good deal for a plant whose seeds, sap and leaves are toxic. This plant is also known as the “cow itch vine,” because contact with its leaves can cause contact dermatitis, apparently not to hummingbirds, though.

Many insects feed on this plant, including planthoppers, mealy bugs, scale and white flies, all in the order, Hemiptera, and produce “honeydew,” their sweet excrement on which ants feed. Insectivorous birds, and insect predator species are attracted to this microecosystem.

Another phenomenon we observed with Trumpet creeper was the delightful spectacle of Baltimore orioles (Icterus galbula) and summer tanagers (Piranga rubra) slicing open the flower tubes to consume  the nectar.  We enjoyed the kaleidoscope of orange, red and yellow of the birds and flowers all glowing in the sunshine. 

We’ve experienced the excitement of seeing numerous birds alight on the branches  of the oak snag, including great-horned owl (Bubo virginianus), bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus), and turkey vulture (Cathartes aura). More commonly, though, American goldfinch (Spinus tristis), tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor), Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis), Northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) and every Kentucky resident or migratory woodpecker species common to Kentucky use its branches in anticipation of their turn at the feeders below.

Although we don’t know what caused the oak tree’s death and rebirth as a snag, we watched in sadness as our very large and beautiful ash tree fell victim to the non-native emerald ash borer (EAB) (Agrilus planipennis). Much of its once gray, rough diamond-shaped bark peeled off in huge chunks in the aftermath of the beetle’s larvae having fed on the tree’s phloem, killing the tree in the process. Phloem are the structures that transport sugars and protein from the leaves where they are produced, to the rest of the tree. It’s mostly bare, skeleton-like trunk bears numerous s-shaped scars from tunnels produced by the beetle larvae.

Prior to this infestation, the ash featured lavishly green compound leaves during the growing season, which turned a lovely reddish-purple in the fall. The fruit of the female white ash are seeds housed in a flat oar-shaped case, called a samara. Samarae are often referred to as “helicopter keys,” because when they fall from the tree, they swirl like a helicopter. Wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus), Northern cardinal, squirrel (family Sciuridae) and mice (Mus spp,) feed on the seeds of the ash tree.

Although the EAB infestations have killed scores of Kentucky’s ash trees (it has been estimated that up to 10% of our forests were made up of ash tree species), remarkably, there is at least one silver-lining, i.e., they have left snags in their wake, offering animal accommodations, and harboring insects behind the still-clinging bark and crevices for insectivores. The populations of woodpecker species, white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis), Carolina chickadee and tufted titmouse, and all cavity-nesting birds, have soared in our area.

“Speaking” of nest cavities, our ash snag possesses one that appears to be highly coveted. Over the span of several weeks one year, we observed a red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus), and several red-bellied woodpeckers inspecting it. One red-bellied woodpecker (M. carolinus) we watched began renovating the cavity by throwing nesting material into it. He stopped renovation periodically to drum on the trunk near the hole, most likely to attract a female. Much to our surprise, a seemingly indignant flying squirrel (Glaucomys Volans) suddenly exited the hole, discarding the added nesting material and chasing the woodpecker around the trunk until she scared him off.

Although it may not be wise to leave every snag on your property, especially in an urban or suburban setting, think twice before having one removed. Even in death, trees can be an asset, as well as the source of much entertainment.