Gardening for Wildlife

There are lots of different names for plantings intended to support wildlife.

Wildlife gardens, Habitat Gardens, Native Landscapes, Ecological Restoration projects, Pollinator gardens…

It’s good to keep the end goal in mind when designing any landscape.

There is definitely a place for designed spaces that emphasize native plants grown from local ecotype seeds with the goal being to preserve local plant genetics and support a wide variety of wildlife.

The other end of the spectrum includes landscapes designed primarily as a backdrop for social spaces and functions, with beautiful aesthetics throughout the year being the target.

Both have their place and I’m in support of nearly any landscape that invites people to spend time outside. Whether in a group setting in an urban/suburban park, or getting some alone time in an ecologically restored landscape, time outside in nature is always a good investment.

Right now, my design emphasis is in the middle of the two extremes. Before working as a landscape designer, I was as a gardener tending to fine estates in the suburban Philadelphia Main Line area. I learned the cycle of planting annuals in pots and in the ground for each season, mulching, pruning, staking, deadheading spent flowers, and cutting everything to the ground in autumn.

When I began working as a designer, I was 100 percent committed to creating landscapes only with native plants, including plants I had grown out from locally collected seeds.

I went from one extreme as a gardener striving to keep compositions of exotic plants looking perfectly maintained to valuing a collection of plants of local provenance as the best expression of a landscape.

In recent years, I have found an appreciation for a balanced approach between the two ends of the spectrum.

It’s hard to ignore feeling connected to native plant landscapes that are visited by butterflies,, hummingbirds, turtles, and other wildlife, all while showing the beautiful changes that occur throughout the seasons. Doug Tallamy’s work explains the layers of significance these landscapes of native plants provide for local ecology.

It’s also hard to ignore the beauty of a well-designed landscape focused on plant combinations that emphasize contrasting forms, colors and textures. Piet Oudolf has been the most significant landscape designer I have studied in this regard. Studying the form of plants and how they exist without excessive pruning, deadheading and other maintenance has been a major takeaway for me from Piet’s work.

In 2024, I am designing primarily with native plants while also appreciating the beauty that some of our non-native, conventional landscape plants can provide. Realistically, this is a few species that most people have become familiar with over the past few decades of gardening and have proven to be well behaved in the landscape. Nepeta, Salvia, Stachys, Agastache and Perovskia are the species that come to mind as elements of recent landscapes. They have a role in providing long-bloom times and filling in gaps between native species blooming. I still prefer native plants and start all of my landscape with Ilex, Cornus, Viburnum, Amsonia, Phlox, Solidago, Rudbeckia, Penstemon, Panicum, Asters and especially Asclepias species when I can.

Whatever the landscape and composition of native to non-native plants, there is a magical feeling of seeing a Butterfly Milkweed supporting monarch butterflies as eggs, caterpillars, and adults enjoying the leaves and bright orange flowers.