What is a Native Plant?
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a native plant is “a species that has naturally occurred in a particular area or ecosystem for a very long time, typically before human introduction. These plants are well-adapted to the local climate, soil, and interactions with other species in the area.”
Planting native plants is important because, among many reasons, doing so:
- Supports pollinators and provides wildlife habitat
- Increases biodiversity
- Reduces stormwater runoff
- Conserves water
- Improves air quality
- Reduces the need to use pesticides
Plus they are beautiful too – the plants shown in the image above are all native to Anne Arundel County!
Maryland’s Coastal Plain Eco-region
Maryland is one of the states with the largest number of eco-regions, with the soil and climate conditions varying greatly between the coastal areas in the east and the mountainous areas in the west. The vast majority of Anne Arundel County (the area which Unity Gardens serves) is referred to as Chesapeake Rolling Coastal Plains. The very northern tip of our county falls in the Piedmont Uplands region.
Why Does the Ecoregion matter?
Each ecoregion features a unique combination climate, soil and geological factors that influence which animals and plants will thrive in the specific conditions found in the region. Over time, the plants and animals have adapted to these factors. When choosing native plants for your project, these different adaptations influence the degree to which your plant will flourish and fulfill its potential to support local pollinators and other members of the wildlife community. Other factors such as the amount of sunlight (sunny or shady), the moisture (wet or dry), the composition of the soil (clay. loam or sand), and the acidity of the soil are referred to as “growing conditions” and also influence plant selection. How to assess your growing conditions is covered on our Choosing Native Plants webpage (coming soon). But at the most basic level – identifying which plants are native to your specific ecological locale is the first step in the screening process.
What About the Hardiness Zones?
The hardiness zones indicate the average temperature ranges found in a specific area, and therefore also matter to the extent that plants vary in their ability to handle different high and low temperatures. In recent years these hardiness zones have been revised to reflect climate change, and Anne Arundel County is now in Zone 8a. However, it is the ecoregion’s unique mix of soil and evolutionary habitats that should be the primary factors when selecting native plants for your project.
Unity Gardens’ Native Plant Qualification Guidelines
All Unity Gardens funded plant purchases must be for plants native to the Coastal Plains ecoregion of Maryland, for the reasons discussed above. If you are not certain whether or not a plant meets this requirement, please use one of the following resources to check.
Primary Resource:
Anne Arundel County Native Plants List
Secondary Resources:
Please note that these secondary resources contain plants from ALL regions of Maryland, and in some cases, the even broader Chesapeake Bay Watershed area which includes parts of six states (Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, West Virginia and New York) and covers three distinct physiographic regions. Please be sure to confirm that your plant is native to the Coastal Plains ecoregion when using these resources.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping (Chesapeake Bay Watershed) – Purchasable Here for $7, or Downloadable Here.
Alliance for the Bay (online/searchable version of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife guide)
…Plus a Note on Cultivars
Nurseries label plants with both their commonly used names and their scientific (Latin) names. It is always best to use the Latin name since common names can vary by region and sometimes the same name is used to refer to different types of plants. The scientific name will be in the format of Genus species. If the genus and species are followed by another unitalicized word in single quotes, this indicates the plant is a cultivar, and the word(s) in quotes is the name of the cultivar. For example Phlox divaricata ‘Blue Moon’ indicates the plant is in the genus Phlox, the species is “divaricata” (i.e. woodland) and “Blue Moon” is the cultivar. A cultivar is a plant that has been genetically manipulated by humans to produce certain desired traits.
When possible, Unity Gardens encourages the use of straight species – ie. plants that have not been genetically modified – since these plants are as they have evolved over millions of years to be adapted to the area in which it grows. While some cultivars have been developed for traits such as pest resistance or drought tolerance and therefore actually outperform the straight species in certain circumstances, others have been modified to affect the color, bloom time or other traits to appeal to gardeners’ aesthetic preferences. Since the insects that feed on these plants have evolved complex interactions based on the specific colors, sizes, bloom times etc. of their host plant, planting a cultivar can render the plant useless in providing critical food and habitat to the native insects and animals we are trying to support. For this reason, as a general rule, the straight species is always preferable to a cultivar.
