Thank you for choosing native plants. With some effort, your space will become a safe haven for pollinators, beneficial insects, and native species. 

Long Island ecotypic plants have evolved here. They have adapted themselves to our climate and soils, bringing many benefits to the gardener, the environment, and the community. 

Benefits for Environment

Native plants are adapted to our weather patterns. Once established, which takes 2-3 years, plants typically do not require additional waterings. Some of our plants prefer wet soils, and some prefer dry. This is why we’ve examined your sites and chosen the best plants. After initial maintenance of the seedlings, this pollinator garden will need only a rare watering. 

Native plants are adapted to our soils. Different soils provide different kinds of nutrients. When planting non-native plants, one may need to add fertilizers to the soil in order for the plant to grow well. Native plants, on the other hand, want exactly what is already there. No fertilizers are necessary. In areas with loose, sandy soils, plants adapted to grow their roots very deep. This reaches down for the fast-draining water and ends up holding the sand in place, preventing coastal erosion. 

Native plants are adapted to local insects and pests. A common pest found in our area is the aphid, which can grow in numbers rapidly. To control them, some plants can create their own kind of pesticide, and some plants rely on beneficial insects to take care of the problem. Seeing aphids in the garden is a great sign that praying mantises, lacewings, and lady beetles are on the way! Native plants are also host to many beautiful butterflies, moths, and bees. Black Swallowtails rely on the nectar of Echinacea and the Painted Lady will lay her eggs on sunflowers. 

Benefits for Community

There are a host of benefits for the environment with native plants, and there can be huge benefits to the community. For one, native plants bring beauty. As mentioned, they are frequented by beautiful butterflies every season. Many native plants have colorful flowers that attract the human eye along with its pollinators. Some plants even have a pleasant smell to their foliage. Many produce fruit that are loved by songbirds that bring lovely whistling with them, which has been seen to be an antidepressant. 

For people, native plants mean a space to breathe. To watch the insects, smell the flowers, and clear the mind. A native garden also provides an opportunity for education. We can teach children to appreciate nature, local wildlife, and sustainability. It can also be taught how important these plants are to our ecosystem at large. Everyone can find something to learn within a native pollinator garden. 

Site Prep

Step 1. Removal of weeds

Before anything can be done to the area, all other plant materials should be removed. It is important to get out the roots of the weeds, to make sure they won’t come back. Any gardener knows weeds are always around, but removing as much as possible will lower the pressure greatly for the young seedlings. Important tools include gloves, hand trowels, pruners, and/or shovels. 

Step 2. Creating a border

Measure where you want the bed to be and create a border. This can be simply with a shovel, digging a small ditch to separate it from encroaching weeds. It could also be a weed barrier, small fence, or a line of bricks. The material is less important than accentuating the space as significant to avoid any potential confusion.

Step 3. Preparing the soil

If the soil is very compacted, it may be necessary to break it up before planting the seedlings. This can be done with a shovel, a cultivator, or a hoe. 

Step 4. Keeping weeds in check

As mentioned above, weeds will always be present. You can further decrease weed pressure by covering the bare soil. There are many options to choose from, which include weed fabric, mulch like wood chips or straw, or even gravel. Holes will need to be made for the seedlings once you are ready to plant. Care must still be taken to weeding these holes, and any weeds that might pop up elsewhere. 

General Planting Practices

Before planting it is important to keep up with the health of the seedlings. They shouldn’t be allowed to dry out, since their roots don’t have much space. It is best to plant them in the ground as soon as possible. The best days to plant are cloudy with rain in the forecast, but this isn't necessary as you will want to water them into place regardless. 

To remove the plants from their pots, place one hand over the soil and flip the pot upside down. If the plant doesn’t fall out, you can gently squeeze the bottom of the pot. If they are well rooted, you may be able to pull the plant out of the pot by gently grabbing the base. Don’t squeeze too hard, this can damage the plant. If all else fails, you can scoop out the plant with a long, skinny tool placed down the side of the pot.   

You’ll want to use a hand trowel to dig a hole about the same size as the pot. Most plants don’t like to be buried past the stems, and this can lead to the seedling failing so the depth is important. Place the plant so the roots will be buried, and the stems will not. Once in the soil without its pot, scoop any loose soil closer and tamp down with one hand on either side of the plant, this will anchor the plant in place. 

Once all the seedlings are planted, you’ll want to water them in. Give them a good drink so that there is good root/soil contact and the plants are able to establish themselves well. Do this even if it will rain soon, as transplanting can put a lot of stress on the seedlings. 

Maintenance Ideas

The planting of the garden is not the end. The seedlings should be maintained for at least 3 years in order to help guarantee their establishment. Tasks like weeding, watering, and minor pruning are necessary to maintain the area. 

Weeding is a task that can feel daunting if not done often enough. 

Once weekly weeding nip weeds in the bud when they are young. The task is frequent and light on labor since the weeds are easy to pull and in low quantities. 

Weeding can be done more infrequently, such as every 2 weeks or once a month, but the task will require more labor the more time passes between weeding. Waiting longer between weeding can invite more aggressive weeds and invasives to take hold, as many of these species can be replicated from root fragments and are difficult to remove.

Pruning is not a necessary task when it comes to native gardens. One may want to prune some shrubs if they are spreading beyond the garden’s borders. It is best to leave herbaceous (non-woody) plants untrimmed, especially through the fall and winter as many native and beneficial insects will overwinter in the foliage. If choosing to cut back the foliage, do so in the late spring/ early summer when new growth is appearing. Consider “chopping and dropping” - the practice of leaving the trimmed foliage in place, which acts as mulch and allows any potential insects that may remain a chance at survival. 

Watering is the most essential maintenance task, practices will determine whether the garden becomes established as planned. After the initial planting, the seedling should be watered daily for the first week or so, and for the next month the soil moisture should be monitored to ensure there is enough moisture for the young seedlings. This can be done by digging a small hole and observing how far down until the soil is moist. If below 3 inches, the seedlings should be watered. You may also use a moisture meter, inserted around 6 inches below the surface. If there is enough rain, the plants do not need water. Ideally, they should receive 1 inch of rain per week. Consider installing a rain gauge to monitor local rainfall. 

The final task in maintenance is to enjoy the view. A gardener’s presence is beneficial to the garden in many ways. First, it allows one to get in tune with the plants; their location, their appearance, their growth rate, etc. The gardener’s presence, then, is great for monitoring the plant’s health and any changes that may appear. Pest monitoring is not entirely necessary. The presence of insects, even ones that may be considered pests, are almost always a good sign in a native garden. When insects are observed, the most important step is identification. Unless the insect is identified and confirmed to be officially invasive on Long Island, it should be left in place. A good resource for identification is the iNaturalist website and app- https://www.inaturalist.org/. A good resource to confirm whether a species is invasive is the LIISMA PRISM’s invasive tier list- https://liisma.org/species/liisma-tier-list/. 

References:

https://www.perkiomenwatershed.org/benefits-of-native-plants

https://www.sweetbriarnc.org/butterfly

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20207-6