why native plants?

Why Natives?

Native plants are much different than any other plants. Not only do native plants provide benefits to the environment as a whole, they also provide value to you and your backyard. Because Pennsylvania’s native plants are meant to grow here, they thrive with less maintenance, thereby reducing the need to water and fertilize them. They also serve as pollinators, attract wildlife, and reduce other unwanted species.

In Pennsylvania, our native plants lend a sense of place that is recognized and enjoyed by citizens and visitors from all over the world. If our native plants continue to be replaced with species from other places, Pennsylvania will lose the natural beauty and resources that define the state. Native plants create beautiful landscapes that provide native wildlife with the best habitat and food they need to survive. Native plants also help to protect watersheds and maintain the unique natural heritage of an area.

What is a Native Plant?

A native plant is one that occurred within the state before settlement by Europeans. Native plants include ferns and clubmosses; grasses, sedges, rushes, and their kin; flowering perennials; annuals, which only live one year; biennials, which have a two-year life cycle; and, of course, the woody trees, shrubs, and vines which covered “Penn’s Woods” when the first settlers arrived. More than 2,100 native plant species make up the botanical diversity of Pennsylvania.

A “Growing” Problem

While new plants are coming into Pennsylvania, native plants are being lost to habitat destruction, invasive plants, and introduced pests and diseases. By 2000, five percent of Pennsylvania’s native plant species had been eliminated and another 25 percent were in danger of becoming extinct. The good news is that action can be taken to protect and enhance the remaining diversity of these beautiful and useful plant species.