{"id":812,"date":"2025-06-11T12:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T16:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.seagrant.w3.uvm.edu\/2025\/06\/11\/incorporating-native-plants-in-your-yard-and-garden-why-do-it-and-how-to-get-started\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T12:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T16:04:13","slug":"incorporating-native-plants-in-your-yard-and-garden-why-do-it-and-how-to-get-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/2025\/06\/11\/incorporating-native-plants-in-your-yard-and-garden-why-do-it-and-how-to-get-started\/","title":{"rendered":"Incorporating Native Plants in your Yard and Garden: Why do it and how to get started"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNative plants play a vital role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, especially when it comes to stormwater uptake, flood resilience, and providing habitat for wildlife including pollinators such as bumble bees and swallowtail butterflies. Residents in the Lake Champlain Basin can plant natives in their gardens and yards to realize these benefits at the household and community scale. Lake Champlain Sea Grant (LCSG) has developed two new plant lists featuring Northeast natives that will thrive in saturated soil and tolerate road salt. Each property is different, so these lists help residents determine which plants are right for them based on their site and goals. If you would like to build a colorful pollinator garden along an urban road, consider blue false indigo (Baptisia australis), black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta), or mountain mint (Pycnanthemum incanum)\u00a0from the Salt Tolerant plant list<\/a>. If you would like to soak up a wet spot in a backyard and create a food forest, try aronia (Aronia melanocarpa), elderberry (Sambucus canadensis), and highbush cranberry (Viburnum trilobum) from the Water Loving Clay Tolerant plant list<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThrough the BLUE Stormwater Program<\/a>, LCSG staff evaluate properties with unique challenges, such as urban lawns with higher salinity due to road salts, or properties with dense clay soils that may experience pooling after rains. LCSG created these plant lists for homeowners who want to build habitat or stormwater resiliency on their property, but aren\u2019t sure where to start. Brian, a resident of Williston Vermont, lives on a property with poorly draining soils, high clay content, and shallow depth to groundwater. To help combat excess saturation, Brian has allowed native trees, grasses, and perennials to thrive as these plants help intercept, slow, filter, infiltrate, and transpire stormwater. Explore Brian\u2019s property through this interactive story map<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnlike lawn grasses, which have short roots\u2014only around 2\u20133 inches deep, native perennials like New England aster (Aster novae-angliae) and wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa)\u00a0have root systems stretching down two feet into the soil. Native grasses like prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) have even deeper roots reaching eight feet down. Deeper roots stabilize soil and provide pathways for water to infiltrate. Once taken up by the plant, water can evaporate back into the atmosphere through the leaves.\u00a0Along streambanks and rivers, the deep and adapted root systems of trees like black willow (Salix nigra), river birch (Betula nigra), and sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) help absorb rainwater efficiently, reduce runoff, filter pollution, protect aquatic habitat, prevent bank erosion, and reduce flood severity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFlood control and stormwater filtration aren\u2019t the only benefits of planting native. Native plants provide better habitat for wildlife and some are edible or have medicinal properties.<\/p>\n