If you’ve decided to plant natives as part of a restoration effort, you likely know and appreciate their many benefits. Knowing your site’s characteristics and long-term goals will help ensure your project’s success.
Create attractive, working natural habitats and connect with nature with these tips.
1. Research the Natives That Thrive in Your Area
Native plants are adaptable. But having evolved in natural communities, they prefer certain growing conditions. Understanding your region’s natural communities can help you create successful landscapes. Take your cue from plants that grow in natural communities. They work in landscapes with similar features and provide habitat for wildlife. For example,
Where Grasses thrive:
- Prairie/grasslands. Low-height grasses that offer long vistas.
How to use. Create shapes by reducing mowing and incorporating plant drifts to increase diversity. Can be dry, moist or wet.
- Savanna. A mix of grass, scattered trees, and shrubs.
How to use. This is an ideal inspiration for suburban landscapes. Open areas blended with landscape beds for color and interest. Trees and shrubs offer shade, screening and extra texture.
- Forests: A patchwork of plant communities with varying shade tolerance, different shade densities.
How to use. Shady sites can draw on the cool drama of a wooded parcel to create lush oases. Vary shade densities by removing low limbs or thinning trees. Layer shade-tolerant shrubs under canopy trees and over woodland plants.
- Glade: Open, sunny area with shallow, rocky soils at the edge of woodlands.
How to use. Choose drought tolerant perennials and low- to medium-height grasses for this easy-care site.
- Wetlands: Permanently or seasonally flooded or saturated sites creating oxygen-deprived soils.
How to use. Wetlands are home to a variety of trees, grasses, sedges, rushes, and perennials. Naturally wet areas can form the nucleus of a pond garden or rain garden. Wetland woody plants also perform well on compacted, anaerobic urban soils.
Learn more about natural communities and how they compare to your specific site. Consider which plants grow best in your locale and on your specific site. Or, if your goal is improving habitat, how you can use native plants to adapt your site and reach that goal. Some good resources include:
- Missouri Botanical Garden – https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org
- Missouri Department of Conservation – https://mdc.mo.gov/trees-plants
- University of Missouri – https://extension.missouri.ed
2. Get to Know Your Soil
Soil qualities vary throughout different regions of the country. Knowing your soil characteristics, e.g., sandy, clay, loam, help you select the best natives for your site.
For a general idea of your landscape’s soil, review your county’s soil atlas.
3. Find a Nursery that knows natives
Many nurseries sell natives that aid in restoration. But with Forrest Keeling’s decades of experience you get more than plants. Their RPM technology delivers native plants that perform better and faster. The patented 12-step RPM technology is unique.
- Seed Provenance
Provenance is like a plant’s internal clock that tells the plant when to break dormancy. It also helps ensure consistent flowering and fruiting at your planting sites. Forrest Keeling collects quality seed across the country and location-codes it through production. RPM-produced, coded seedlings deliver the best performance in their final planting sites.
- Faster Results
The all-natural RPM-production method yields twice the results in half the time. Scientific studies show our RPM-produced plants grow, flower, and fruit two times faster.
- Superior Survivability
Greater root mass improves transplant success. Additionally, RPM root mass leads to a 95% survivability rate.
- Lifetime Vigor
Using a proprietary soil media, RPM plants have greater access to nutrients. In fact, our soil media is as alive as our plants! Rich with mycorrhizae, it’s proven to improve the soil at each plant’s installation.
Shop Natives at Forrest Keeling
4. Manage Your timeline expectations
Native plants can take several years to establish root systems, flower and bear seed or fruit. Simply, restoration takes time. You can expedite your results by choosing Forrest Keeling’s RPM-Produced plant material. RPM-produced plants are proven to grow, flower, and fruit two times faster.
While natives may be characterized by lower maintenance, they do require care. This includes adequate water during their first year of establishment. You’ll need a regular plan to help control weeds and occasional wildlife interference. Early on, mulch can help prevent weeds and encourage growth in seedlings.
Forrest Keeling is Where the Best Natives and Restoration Projects Begin
Driven by a passion for restoration and improving ecosystems nationwide, Forrest Keeling is the leader in native plant production. Each year, we grow hundreds of species of native trees, shrubs, perennials, and grasses.
If you’re considering a native plant project, explore the benefits of our patented RPM system. Then, contact a Forrest Keeling team member today to learn about all your native options.
Forrest Keeling Nursery… it’s ‘where the best natives begin!’ Contact us today.