We are so glad you want to join us in growing, conserving and celebrating native plants in our region!
Incorporating native plants in your landscaping or flower gardens is a simple way anyone can attract and support pollinators like bees and butterflies and make your garden more drought resistant and climate change resilient.
Why grow native plants?
Native plants provide many benefits in your garden and on your property. They are beautiful, adapted to our region, and provide habitat for native animals. Native plants can provide food, shade, flowers and erosion control.
The key to growing native plants successfully is a genuine interest and knowledge.
You need to know your local conditions the plants that grow in your area, and how to propagate these plants.
While there are many benefits, growing native plants “from scratch” native plants will not give you an instant garden. It takes patience. It’s important to first of all to know your site. Spend some time at the site. Take notes – what plants grow there now, is it dry or wet, sunny or shady. Then find a reference site that has similar conditions.
If you encounter plants you’re not familiar with, look them up. Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia and the Inland Northwest by Robert Parish, Ray Coupe and Dennis Lloyd is good book to start with. It has brief descriptions of each plant, the ecosystems it grows in and excellent illustrations. If you want to use an online resource E-Flora BC (http://www.geog.ubc.ca/biodiversity/eflora/) has lots of information.
Where to Start
- Some nurseries may carry native plants suitable for your garden but before you buy, check to see if they have been treated with pesticides. Only untreated plants can safely provide food and habitat benefits to pollinators. If you can’t find untreated native plants at your local nursery, ask them to bring some in.
- Locally, native plants and seeds can be purchased through Kinseed – learn more at their website here.
- Ensure if you are planting milkweed species to support Monarch in particular, it is the species native to our region Showy Milkweed – Asclepias speciosa.
- In addition to Showy Milkweed, native plants that we have observed Monarchs nectaring on in the West Kootenay include Canada Goldenrod, Fall Asters, and Pearly Everlasting. Late-blooming plants like these are especially important at the end of the season for Monarchs preparing for the long migration to California. They also benefit all late season pollinators.
Know Your Site
Learn all you can about your intended site, and work with the conditions you have rather than trying to change them.
Is it sunny, shady, dry, moist? What kind of soil does it have?
Find plants that grow in similar conditions in the wild.
Native plants for dry sites
Arrowleaf balsamroot, Balsamorhiza sagittata
Russet buffaloberry, Soopolallie, Shepherdia canadensis
Western mountain-ash, Sorbus sitchensis
Buckbrush, Ceanothus velutinus
Lewis’s mock-orange, Philadelphus lewisii
Saskatoon, Amelanchier alnifolia
Wild roses, Rosa sp.
Chokecherry, Prunus virginiana
Oregon-grape, Mahonia, Mahonia aquifolium
Native plants for sites with average moisture
Kinnikinnick, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
False box, Paxistima myrsinites
Shrubby penstemon, Penstemon fruticosa sp.
Common camas, Camassia quamash
Native plants for wet/damp sites
Red-osier dogwood, Cornus sericea
Twinberry, Lonicera involucrata
Willows, Salix sp.
Alders, Alnus sp.
Easiest to grow native shrubs
Red-osier dogwood, Cornus sericea
Willows, Salix sp.
Chokecherry, Prunus virginiara
Alders, Alnus sp.