Gardening and Native Plants

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Purple and yellow flowers

One of the largest threats to Pennsylvania's native habitat is the spread of non-native plant species. You can make a difference in your own yard by choosing to plant only plants that are native to the Eastern United States and removing invasive plants like Japanese Barberry, English Ivy, and Burning Bush. By gardening with native plants, you can increase the biodiversity in your yard, be a responsible steward of the land, and make your yard a healthy space for all to enjoy.

Through its partnership with Bird Town Pennsylvania, the Abington Environmental Advisory Council (EAC) encourages all residents to plant with native plants whenever possible. Abington is a certified Bird Town because our work to increase the use of native plants plays an important role in helping birds, pollinators, other wildlife, and humans too.

For more information, please visit the links below or e-mail the EAC: eac@abingtonpa.gov. Questions about trees? Visit the Shade Tree Commission’s (STC) webpage to contact them: www.abingtonpa.gov/stc.

Click on the tab below to expand more information about each topic.

What are native plants and why are they so important?

The Abington EAC defines native plants as species indigenous to eastern North America that occur naturally in an area without human intervention and grew there prior to European settlement. Such plants are adapted to the local climate and tend to be more drought, disease, and insect resistant than introduced species, and they help preserve the balance and beauty of natural ecosystems.

Wildlife such as birds, butterflies, and bees rely on and cannot live without native plants. Insects co-evolved over millennia with these plants, and they often can only feed on those plants. Take the example of the monarch butterfly and milkweed: the monarch caterpillars are specialists that can only feed on milkweed. Without milkweed, there are no monarch butterflies. The same is true for some species of insects that are specialists rather than generalists. More than a quarter of our native bees are specialists that require pollen from specific native plants in order to feed their young.

As Bird Town Pennsylvania explains:

Native plants form the basis of our ecosystem and food web and contribute to the region’s biodiversity. The seeds, nuts, berries and nectar are digestible, nutritious and well-timed for local wildlife, unlike those of non-natives. Native plants have co-evolved with the insects that are the primary food of many birds and other animals and provide important shelter and support for them. Our native tree, White Oak (Quercus alba), supports over 500 caterpillar species compared to the non-native Gingko Tree, which supports only 5 species. This is significant as it takes over 6,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of chickadees!

Native plants don’t need fertilizers, extra watering, or pesticides since they are adapted to local conditions. As their roots grow much deeper, they can effectively reduce stormwater run-off when integrated into rain gardens, bioswales, and riparian buffers, so necessary for our green infrastructure.

In Abington Township, where almost all of the land has been developed and is owned by individual homeowners, wildlife like birds and butterflies rely on the native plants that we plant and care for on our properties.

How to know which native plants to use and where to buy them.

To make it easier for home and business owners to identify the right native plants for their properties, as well as where to purchase those plants, the EAC and Bird Town have put together this flyer.

Native Plants: How to Choose and Where to Buy Flyer

It contains a list of resources and links to entities that can help you filter plant selections based on the growing conditions in your yard (like sun, moisture level, etc.). In addition, it contains a list of local nurseries that sell native plants, as well as selected online retailers that ship native plants. Please note that this list is not all-inclusive and should not be considered an endorsement of any particular business by the EAC or Abington Township.

Some sources provide pre-planned kits for specific garden conditions, to take the guesswork out of putting together small native plant gardens. These include the National Wildlife Federation and Prairie Nursery.

Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve - Links to several fact sheets including: Native Plants for Sun, Native Plants for Shade, Native Plants for Butterflies, Native Plants to Attract Birds, Deer Resistant Native Plants.
Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Common Trees of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Native Plant Society - non-profit educational organization dedicated to the study and preservation of Pennsylvania's native plants.
Pennypack Ecological Trust - has a native plant growing group which holds a native plant sale every spring and fall.

Invasive plants to avoid and noxious weeds that are illegal to sell or plant.

While the EAC always encourages the planting of native plants, it is particularly important to not plant anything that is invasive. An invasive plant is one that comes from another part of the world (including another part of North America) and out-competes and displaces our native plants. When you see vines swallowing trees and smothering everything in their wake, you are looking at invasive plants. These invasive plants get out of control in part because the naturally-occuring insects that keep them under control in their home regions are not present here; this helps them grow without the natural balances of the food web that would keep them in check.

Many gardens contain invasive plants because it often takes decades of circulation in the horticultural trade before an introduced plant is recognized as having invasive tendencies. For example, the Japanese Barberry or Burning Bush you may have in your yard were popular residential plantings for many decades. Over time, the small berries that these plants produce are consumed by birds and spread throughout the region, resulting in the spread of invasive plants through other yards and public green spaces. Home gardeners can be the first line of defense in reducing invasive plant spread in our area; if you have invasive plants in your yard, you can greatly benefit the ecosystem balance by removing those plants and replacing them with native species.

There are two lists you should consult to determine whether a plant is invasive: the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) list of plants considered invasive on state lands and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture list of controlled plants and noxious weeds. Plants designated as noxious weeds are illegal under state law. In addition, Abington Township has an ordinance that restricts the planting of certain bamboo species.

The following common invasive plants can no longer be sold or purchased because they are now designated noxious weeds:

Japanese Barberry - Berberis thunbergii
Callery pear - Pyrus calleryana
Burning bush - Euonymus alatus (Grace period until January 10, 2025)
Chinese privet - Ligustrum sinense (Grace period until January 10, 2025)
European privet - Ligustrum vulgare (Grace period until January 10, 2025)
Border privet - Ligustrum obtusifolium (Grace period until January 10, 2025)

If you have these or other invasive species in your yard, consider removing them and replacing them with native plants. The Penn State Extension website is one of several sources that suggests appropriate replacement plants that are more desirable than the invasives.

While these invasive plant lists are good starting points to identify problematic plants to remove and avoid planting, many other non-native plants are already or likely to become invasive. Non-native plants go through an “invasion curve” before they become truly invasive and spread. Thus, the invasive plants of tomorrow are ones that gardeners are likely already planting.

Invasive plants degrade and harm the ecosystem. Planting native plants is a good way of avoiding this pattern and ensuring that the investments you make in your garden today will always have a positive effect on the future of your garden and the surrounding community.

Native plant demonstration gardens at the Abington Township Public Library

Starting in 2023, the EAC and the Abington Township Public Library began a collaborative effort to transform the landscaping at the Library’s Old York Road location. The landscaping was previously dominated by excesses of mulch and the invasive liriope groundcover. The EAC and the Library recognized this as an opportunity to showcase the beauty and utility of native plants.

This project is an experiment in using all native plants in the Library’s parking lot, which is the first showcase of its kind in Abington Township. By taking inspiration from various public gardens that use native plants in their parking lots, including the Mt. Cuba Center and Stoneleigh, the project aims to show that homeowners and businesses can use the same approach with native plants in their own tough areas alongside streets and sidewalks.

One of the key considerations in this project was that its maintenance could not rely on volunteers. Too often, gardens planted by volunteers ultimately fail because volunteers cannot commit to the watering and weeding that is required to establish new gardens. The Library understood this and agreed to make the maintenance a staff obligation, helping ensure the long-term success. The Library’s Building Manager has been an indispensable partner in keeping these plants alive.

In Spring 2023, EAC volunteers planted hundreds of native plants in the parking lot island in the Library’s south parking lot that is farthest from Old York Road. Prior to the project, the island was predominantly mulch with a pair of mature trees. The planting list consisted of:

Native Plants at Abington Free Library

The end closest to the library already contained a Sycamore and some young Serviceberries that were planted by the STC. That area was also thickly covered with liriope, a groundcover that has become invasive in our area. Volunteers cut back and smothered the liriope with cardboard and a thick layer of wood mulch, which unfortunately proved ineffective at killing the thuggish plant and required additional intervention the following year to finally remove it.

By the end of 2023, the gardens were viewed as a wild success, which opened the door to new garden projects at the Library.

Native Plants at Abington Free Library

In 2024, volunteers planted three other areas in the south parking lot: the other parking lot strip closer to Old York Road, an empty tree pit on Old York Road, and the remainder of the parking lot strip from the 2023 planting that was choked with liriope. The liriope in both parking lot strips proved a particularly difficult invasive to remove and required manually digging out all of the roots, but the work was necessary to give the new plants a clean space to take hold.

The planting list for these areas was largely consistent with Phase 1, for two reasons: (1) due to the experimental nature of this project, we wanted to understand how suitable these plants are for these conditions; and (2) we wanted to keep a consistent palette for this section of the parking lot, with the goal of experimenting with a new mix of plants in the north parking lot in 2025:

In 2025, volunteers planted over 300 plants in the garden beds at the front of the Library. The plantings occurred in two areas: the space adjacent to the Library main entrance, where a declining Southern Magnolia and Serviceberry were removed; and 2) a section in the Discovery Garden where two Redbuds were removed due to their roots damaging the paving. Abington Township Parks and Recreation generously used its staff to remove the invasive liriope that blanketed the first area, replacing it with new soil that was ready for planting.

The conditions in this area are extremely hot and dry, with the sun baking it all day against the stone of the building. In light of the severity of the 2024 drought, which killed some of the parking lot plants (and were later replaced by volunteers), we provided the Library with soaker hoses, so that the plants could be fully saturated once a week while settling into their new dry conditions. The Library staff will continue to be invaluable to the long-term success of this project, to ensure that the plants receive adequate irrigation.

While there is some overlap in the planting list for this area and the parking lot - again, for visual consistency and to continue to test the efficacy of certain plants - the harsh, full-sun conditions combined with a larger space allowed us to add new species:

In addition to volunteers from the EAC and STC, the following partners helped make this project a success:

Homegrown Habitats LLC, which donated its time and expertise by designing the gardens and obtaining the plants.
Bird Town Pennsylvania, which provided grant funding from Penn Community Bank.
The Pennsylvania Native Plant Society, which provided grant funding.
Habitat Tree LLC, which provided labor to plant trees and remove liriope.

Native plant demonstration gardens at Roslyn Park

Native Plant Garden at Roslyn Park

The EAC and STC jointly engaged in this pilot project to determine the best way to plant new groves of trees that are underplanted with native shrubs and flowering plants. Too often, trees that are planted in public spaces are simply planted into turfgrass, without any understory or groundcover plants. This is not natural, and it also unnecessarily stresses the young trees because they do not have other plants to shade the ground (thus keeping the roots cooler) and risk death by lawn equipment. To change this paradigm, the EAC and STC seek to expand the use of native plants and create mini ecosystems when planting new trees in public spaces.

This project also seeks to establish a standardized practice of paying landscape contractors to maintain newly planted spaces, so that maintenance does not rely entirely on volunteer support. After a competitive bidding process, the EAC and STC selected Spruce Hollow LLC to plant and maintain the demonstration gardens. Spruce Hollow has a focus on native plant garden design and maintenance, which made it perfect for the parameters of this pilot project. The gardens were planted in May 2024, and the maintenance provided by Spruce Hollow proved critical to keep the new plants alive and thriving during the extreme heat and drought that followed thereafter.

The first garden is near the intersection of Susquehanna Road and Maple Avenue and the second garden is near the parking lot off Artman Street. The plant list for both spaces includes:

TREES

SHRUBS

HERBACEOUS PLANTS

The EAC and STC look forward to continuing to work on and expand this project in coming years.