Gardens have long provided beauty and sustenance for humankind, but in recent years, we’ve seen a shift in the way we as a society talk about their function. While our gardens can certainly be a space to relax, entertain, and recreate, that’s really only part of the picture! Just as our gardens are an extension of our homes, they are also an extension of the natural world. We share them with a whole host of plants and animals that were here long before us, and will hopefully be here long after us. And in light of this, many people have begun to ask some compelling questions: What if we expanded our idea of what a garden can be? What if we designed our gardens to serve these organisms, too? What if we planted more natives?

What Makes a Native?

While the conversation on what exactly constitutes a native plant can quickly get hairy, a basic definition is a plant with a long evolutionary history in a given eco-region. In the Americas, we often treat European colonization as the inflection point: If a plant was here before Europeans started moving things around, it’s probably a native. And this is certainly the working definition used in the creation of The Portland Plant List, a publicly-supported, science-backed compendium of all the plant species historically found within the limits of what is now Rose City. This is a fantastic resource for gardeners in our area, and is generally considered the definitive authority for many local plant groups, including our friends at the Backyard Habitat Certification Program. (More on them in just a moment!)

That isn’t to say that a plant native to Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, or even the West Coast more broadly isn’t valuable to wildlife. In fact, here at the Farm, you’ll find a variety of PNW native plants in our Native Section, including species native to Oregon, Washington, northern Idaho, and/or British Columbia. However, it’s safe to assume that the closer to your garden a plant can be found growing wild, the more likely it is that your backyard wildlife will know what to do with it and be able to derive benefit from it.

Why Grow Natives?

While there is no shortage of reasons to grow native plants, there is perhaps no better way to support your local ecosystem than by incorporating more natives into your home landscape. The flora and fauna of our region are connected through complex, interdependent food webs that have developed over the course of geologic time spans, sometimes resulting in highly specialized coevolutionary relationships between plants and animals. In some cases, an insect pollinator may be entirely reliant on a single host plant to complete its life cycle. Growing a diverse array of natives increases the likelihood that any one such species is able to successfully reproduce in your garden. This not only helps the insects in question, but the songbirds that eat their larvae, the hawk that preys upon these birds, and so on, sending ripples throughout the food web. By simply providing space for native plants to grow and encouraging local wildlife to use our gardens for food and shelter, we can directly bolster these longstanding ecological relationships, which are under increasing pressure from habitat loss and degradation. It is estimated that more than 25% of our local, non-migrating avian population is in decline — and that’s just birds! But the more biodiversity you can foster in your back yard, the greater the benefit to these birds and the entire network of creatures that make our region so special.

From a human perspective, there is also much to be gained by planting natives. Every time we marvel at the dance of pollinators flitting between flowers or feel pride swelling in our chest when a pair of songbirds successfully rears a brood of chicks outside our window, our lives are made all the richer. Native plants connect us to these creatures and to the wider landscape around us, adding regional character and beauty to our outdoor spaces. And because they are adapted to living in our area, in many cases, native plants also require less maintenance than their non-native counterparts. By way of illustration, think of how many inputs like water, fertilizer, and pesticides are required to keep the average lawn looking low, lush, and free of “weeds” — let alone the more than 40 million acres of lawn cover across the entire United States. Now, instead of a high-maintenance monoculture of non-native turf grasses, imagine a typical Portland yard replete with native perennials, shrubs, and trees. Not only are they beautiful, but because they are adapted to our native climate and soils, they require fewer inputs to look that way.

To talk more about the value of creating backyard habitat, we collaborated with Susie Peterson from the Backyard Habitat Certification Program to create the video below. In it, she talks more about the importance of the work they do to create a network of usable habitat in back yards across the Portland metro area, as well as the organization’s certification process.  If you live in their program area and want to take your native gardening to the next level, check them out! For a donation of $35, they will connect you with one of their habitat technicians, who will visit your property, talk to you about your goals, and put together a comprehensive report with suggestions for you and your garden. And, if you sign up, you’ll even receive a coupon to use on native plants at Cornell Farm.

Creating Backyard Habitat

To start a wildlife garden, first take a look at your site: What is the light like and what kind of soil do you have? No matter your growing conditions — sun or shade, wet or dry — there are native plants that will thrive in your garden. If you’re in need of inspiration, try to mimic the plant communities you see in nature. What grows natively around you already? While your garden should be pleasing to your eye, it should also take into account the way that wildlife will want to use and move through it. Think about building your garden in “layers” or “levels” that different kinds of wildlife will hang out in, starting with ground covers like Oregon oxalis (Oxalis oregana) and moving up to shrubs like Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium), understory trees like vine maples (Acer circinatum), and taller overstory trees like Douglas firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii). While some wildlife will make use of open areas, sufficient canopy cover and hiding spots are a requisite for many species, and a mix of evergreen and deciduous plants at differing heights will ensure that they have somewhere to shelter no matter the time of year.

When making plant choices, think about the range of wildlife diets you can accommodate. By including a variety of flower shapes and bloom times in your garden, you can encourage a variety of different pollinators to visit and ensure that there’s always a source of nectar and pollen for them to find. Hummingbirds, in particular, love the early-season flowers on our native Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum). If you want to attract their berry-eating cousins in the bird world, native fruiting shrubs like Pacific Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) and Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) are a great choice. By leaving the stems and seed heads on native perennials over winter, not only can you provide food for seed-eaters like goldfinches, but habitat for a wide array of stem-nesting pollinators and other insects that many birds and other wildlife depend on for food. Consider incorporating a clean source of water that is available to insects, birds, and other wildlife, and perhaps even leaving a few bare patches of earth for the likes of ground-nesting bees.

If it hasn’t become apparent based on the amount we’ve talked about insects so far, it’s important to remember that a garden can’t truly be wildlife friendly without also being bug-friendly. As such, you should avoid the application of chemical remedies wherever possible, as they can have adverse — even lethal — effects on wildlife well beyond the intended target. Although we may not think of their presence with great fondness, naturally occurring species that we may deem as “pests” play an important role in the ecosystem, too! This is another reason to plant a wide diversity of native plant species in a native garden, and why it's good to plant groupings of each species: Having more than one plant of a given species not only makes it easier for insects and other wildlife to find these plants, but can help to spread out the temporary effects of any resulting herbivory. For instance, if a small heliothodes moth lays eggs on a patch of Showy Tarweed (Madia elegans) in your garden, the caterpillars that hatch from these eggs (as seen above) are less likely to defoliate a grouping of their host plants than a single individual. And even if these plants look a little worse for the wear, in a diverse garden, there are plenty of neighbors to pick up the slack until these caterpillars are either eaten by birds or metamorphose into adult moths. From there, perennial plants will quickly rebound by sprouting new growth, and any annuals that don't recover will simply create space for the next generation of seeds to sprout, continuing the cycle. In general, the more diverse your native garden, the more resilient it will be, and the more wildlife it stands to support.

In the past decade, we’ve seen our Native Section grow from one or two tables to more than a dozen, and we’d love to see it grow even more! While we think there’s room for more natives in every landscape, it’s good to remember that gardening with natives doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. Every little bit helps, whether you’re working towards platinum status with the Backyard Habitat Certification Program or just incorporating a few red flowering currants into your garden design alongside your beloved camellias. Even apartment gardeners can help out by dedicating a pot or two on their balcony to natives, or growing natives intermixed with other plants! Our enjoyment of our outdoor spaces doesn’t have to come at the cost of our buzzing, flying, crawling, scurrying, or slithering friends — and, in fact, can be greatly increased by their presence.

More Resources

• Check out more native resources on our blog, including information on creating a native rain garden or hummingbird garden.
• The Portland Plant List, published by the City of Portland in 1991 and most recently updated in 2016, is the definitive guide to plants native to the city of Portland, and is an important guiding document for many local gardeners and garden groups.
• "Native Plants for Willamette Valley Yards" by Oregon Metro provides an exhaustive list of plants that are found from the Oregon Cascades to the Coastal Range, with a brief description of each plant, its preferred growing conditions. and the creatures it tends to support.
• Real Gardens Grow Natives by Eileen Stark is a book by a Portland-based ecological landscape designer detailing how to garden with our local flora, from planting to long-term care, plus the impact this can have on biodiversity.
• The Backyard Habitat Certification Program has also compiled an excellent list of links to resources about gardening with native plants.

At Cornell Farm, we pride ourselves on carrying a diverse selection of natives year-round, from tiny spring ephemerals to towering trees. We source all of our high-quality native plants from reputable growers in our area, many of whom grow plants for the purpose of habitat restoration. Check out our online collections of PNW Native Plants and those on the Portland Plant List, or visit us today to explore our Native Section in person.