Beyond xeric: Weathering extremes with native plants

The first words out of your customer’s mouth may be “xeric,” referring to their arid, dry landscape, or “drought-tolerant,” when describing plants they want, but savvy independent garden center staff read between the lines. Customers want reduced water consumption and lower utility bills, but their desire for attractive, sustainable, low-maintenance landscapes still undergirds that drought response. Some regions face unprecedented water restrictions, while others endure record rainfall. In many regions, xeric and drought tolerance don’t translate to low maintenance, satisfaction or success. Locally appropriate native plants and native selections uniquely position you to help customers navigate weather extremes.
 

Expanding customer palettes

What may seem second nature to your staff surprises many customers: water-wise landscapes vary with the region. Traditional xeriscapes, landscapes designed to conserve water through the use of drought-tolerant plants from arid and semi-arid climates, can fail to thrive in areas with extended precipitation. Many xeric plants rely on arid conditions and have little tolerance for wet soils. That holds true in customers’ gardens and on your lot. The same adaptations that surmount drought can inhibit sufficient moisture response, leaving arid-reliant plants wrestling with abundant water. When seasonal stresses arrive, the bout continues, and plant health and aesthetics suffer.

Discovering that not all native plants withstand drought can be equally unexpected. Like cold hardiness, drought hardiness isn’t automatic or absolute. Yet many natives and native selections have the ability to conquer extremes on both ends of the moisture spectrum. Local native plants adapted to your region and its seasonal moisture fluctuations tackle trying weather events with healthy advantages, providing the tools and rewards your customers seek.
 

Recognizing the challenge

Properly matched to the conditions, regionally appropriate native plants require minimal or no supplemental water. By encouraging their use, you help customers reduce water usage and endure unexpected events with satisfying results. Environmental Protection Agency statistics reveal that 30 percent of residential water use occurs outdoors — mostly on landscapes. In arid regions, that rises to 60 percent. Customer expectations for attractive gardens still drive water use, even in drought-stricken regions. One sustainability study at Arizona State University found that homeowners often increased water use after switching to traditional xeriscapes. Dissatisfaction with their landscape’s appearance was the primary reason.
 

Offering native-based solutions

Rain gardens provide one example of specialized native gardens that handle abundant water, stay beautiful during drought, and provide added environmental services.

Steve Castorani, owner of North Creek Nurseries, a Pennsylvania-based wholesale propagation nursery with an emphasis on native plants, encourages the use of regionally appropriate native plants and native cultivars to bridge the divide between abundant precipitation and seasonal dryness, while using many plants already on your lot.

By combining native plants and traditional landscaping principles, rain gardens look like perennial gardens but do much more. Designed to capture rainfall and runoff from rooftops, driveways, lawns, and roads, rain gardens capture water during storms, Castorani explains. “Rain gardens sequester that water so it slowly soaks into the ground, returning to the aquifer instead of storm drains.” Compared to lawns, a rain garden allows 30 percent more water to soak into the ground and filters out pollutants in the process.

In a move that arid-reliant plants can’t match, native-based rain gardens handle periodic inundation with water and continue to shine during dry spells.

University of Minnesota horticulture professor and researcher Dr. Mary H. Meyer oversees the rain garden plantings at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. In a year that has seen historic winter cold followed by record precipitation, native plants in the rain gardens exemplify resilience to these extremes. Dr. Meyer notes that Carex muskingumensis, Chelone obliqua, and Panicum virgatum stand out for their performance in this challenging year. North Creek rain gardens underscore the versatility of many well-known native cultivars, such as Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’ and Eupatorium purpureum ssp. maculatum ‘Gateway.’ 2014 Perennial of the Year Panicum virgatum ‘Northwind,’ a selection of native switchgrass, embodied beauty, refinement and resilience as it moved from hurricane rains to extended drought through its trial years.
 

Tallying the benefits

Through annual weather ups and downs, locally native plants balance customer desires for beauty and water reduction with other benefits. Properly matched to their environment, established native plants require minimal maintenance and no fertilizer. Deep-rooted prairie species seek out their own water, withstand drought without human intervention, hold soil in place during erosion-producing storms, and increase soil’s water-holding capacity.

Meeting water reduction goals with native plants also brings biodiversity to the garden through pollinators, beneficial insects, and the birds that follow them. The EPA reports that a biodiversity study of drought-resistance landscapes designed with non-native, non-U.S. plants showed insect diversity comparable to industrial sites. Though equally hardy and drought tolerant, non-natives did not attract pollinators and animal life in the way regional natives attract those that co-adapted alongside them. University of Delaware research shows that natives experience no greater incidence of insect damage than non-native plants, as they attract beneficial predators along with other insects.
 

Revisiting right plant, right place

Making the connection between drought-driven goals of zero supplemental water and year-round beauty requires “right plant, right place” with a twist. As Castorani points out, “Native soil is very rarely found. Cityscapes have been altered already, and wet and xeric areas are everywhere.” Even during seasonal droughts, home landscapes represent more than a single planting environment. Areas of dry shade, vernal puddling, irrigation overflow, and carefully directed downspouts create diverse microenvironments. By helping customers see available moisture with fresh eyes, you can match native plants to the challenge and satisfy desires for moisture conservation in harmony with your region.

Conservation-minded native plants aren’t limited to informal designs or prairie-type plantings. Encourage customers to incorporate natives into existing non-native gardens to increase resilience and sustainability. Cues from traditional, defining design elements, including hardscapes, help deliver pleasing, beneficial results. By keying in on native landscapes and regional plant communities, you can help home gardeners and landscapers recreate nature’s success, in spite of trying weather extremes.

Jolene is a freelance writer and former hort professional quietly reshaping the way people experience gardens and gardening.