Gardening and Restoration FAQ

Ticks are an increasing concern in many areas. Here are some approaches to help reduce your risk:

1. Arrange plants so that you don’t have to brush up against them, as this is how ticks get onto your clothing and skin. Create fairly wide, open trails with plants held back to the side (perhaps by railings, plant supports or stakes).
2. Biodiverse environments tend to have fewer ticks and lower disease transmission, so maximizing the native plant and other wildlife diversity you can support in your space is helpful.
3. Some non-native plants harbor much denser small mammal and tick populations than native plants because of subtle differences in their structure, and removal of non-native plants in experimental settings has led to a dramatic decline in tick abundance.

Even if you follow all of the suggestions above, it is still important to do regular tick-checks to reduce your risk of contracting tick-borne diseases.

We feel your frustration! Try using the “explore” function in eBird to see what bird species are being seen in your area. Sometimes, despite our efforts, it can be difficult to feel like we are really supporting birds. However, many birds migrate at night, may stop in briefly at dawn and dusk to forage, and can be easy to miss. Continuing to add native plant diversity to your space (check out Audubon’s Native Plant tool), as well as other features like a water feature, brush or leaf pile if you can, do all help. Sometimes, it can take some time for a patch to mature enough for it to be attractive to new species.

Feeders are by definition attractants. Project FeederWatch has some suggestions here. In general, keeping feeders clean is critical – both for bird safety but also to reduce the build-up of excess food which can attract additional visitors. Bringing feeders indoors each night can also help, as some mammal visitors are more active by night. You may also want to explore supporting birds via native plant gardening instead. Native seed and berry-producing plants are nature’s best bird feeders.

There are many native plants which grow well only in shade. If you can, spend some time in a local forest or woodland, and get to know some of the native plants growing there. If you are in a mountainous area, explore what grows naturally in valleys and chasms. You can also use the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Centre “advanced search tool” to help you find locally-native shade plants. Then go to your local native plant vendor and see what they carry. You can use the shade cast by your or your neighbor’s house to grow shade-loving plants – you don’t have to be in an actual forest or valley to have good shade habitat.

For shrubs for containers, you might check out this resource. We have some other plant recommendations for containers here. The bigger a container is, the less often you’ll need to water it. 18″ or more is a good rule of thumb. If you want to try to grow a deep-rooted plant, then look for a tall container to accommodate roots, while some smaller, shallow-rooted plants may be quite happy in something much smaller.

Dogs and other foot traffic can be hard to support via native plants, and sometimes, small rivers of lawn, or gravel, woodchips or pavers can be the best solution for high traffic areas. Look up native strawberries, pussytoes, and some low-growing sedges which may be native in your area. Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens), Pennsylvania Sedge or Bluejoint Grass could be worth looking at too, again if they are native to your area. There is some interesting new research at the Cornell Botanic Gardens on native “lawns” too.

Not all native plants are equal when it comes to supporting biodiversity. Some plant species support just one or two insect species, while others may support 100s of species. Some refer to these species as “keystone” species. Doug Tallamy has published great research on keystone plants that support butterfly and moth caterpillars, and Jarrod Fowler & Sam Drouge have studied what plants are needed for specialist bees. You can find out how many lepidoptera and bees are supported by your native plants in the Wildr Places app, or check out NWF’s tool. It is worth keeping in mind that just because a plant may not be known to support many species, it may still have a really important role to play in a fully functional ecosystem – including in ways we have not yet discovered. So while maximizing what we can support in our spaces is important, so too is supporting natural levels of biodiversity when it comes to just the plant community, and supporting currently unknown relationships. So don’t hesitate to keep or add native plants which might not score high on the insect ratings.

Nativars are generally better to plant than non-native plants, but it’s really best to get the real thing—the pure native variety from a reputable source. Although some nativars provide similar benefits as pure native plants, some do not. Some have obviously different flower structures which may exclude pollinators, or different flower color which may not attract some pollinators. Even subtle differences in chemical composition of leaves and stems can render plants unpalatable or lacking in nutrition.

We are working on a piece right now pulling from the latest research. The answer is complicated, but we will be putting it on our website this summer. If you can hold out for naturally-occurring, “wild-type” plants, that is best for biodiversity.

Planting a variety of native plants suitable for your space means you will support a small ecosystem, supporting both prey and predatory insects. Although you will see insects causing damage to plants, this is something to be celebrated; you are supporting animals! Planting high diversity is also a good way to minimize the impacts of plant diseases.

This depends on your goals. You are free to choose whatever you want to do in your own garden/ property, which may include non-native plants that you particularly like or want to keep for a variety of reasons. However, if you want to contribute to restoring habitat which has been lost from your area, then replacing what has been lost with those same native plants is necessary. Restoration on conservation lands would involve planting native species only, with very few incredibly specific exceptions. Doing what you can to remove and avoid adding, any non-native plants known to be, or likely to be, invasive, is important.

This may come down to how you approach installing plants over a large area. If you are planting seeds mechanically over a large space, i.e. via a wildflower seeder towed by a vehicle, it may simply be more practical to apply the same seed mix for the entire site. However, if your site is very variable, perhaps with some higher, drier patches, and lower, wetter areas,or parts with deep shade vs full sun, you may want to tailor your seed mix for each of these habitats, and switch the mix in the seeder out for each zone. If you are planting plants by hand, then having a highly tailored planting approach may become easier. Within the same habitat type, both patches of single-species plants and very diverse mixes with little pattern or clumping, do occur in nature, so either approach is fine. However, some species are more efficiently pollinated if they are close to other individuals of the same species, so learning a bit about the biology of any key species you want to do particularly well may be helpful. With all else being equal, it can simply boil down to aesthetics – how do you want it to look? Some people prefer an ordered look, with single-species clumps, while others prefer a wilder, mixed together look.

Here is a webinar on designing outdoor spaces.

See our article on Native vs Non-native plants, and our Invasive Species FAQ for more definitions. There are indeed some native species that can become dominant in some contexts. We refer to these as “aggressive”, and generally do not recommend planting in small areas that you want to manage or design. However, aggressive native species can be useful for restoring large areas because they can compete with non-native invasives that do not support our indigenous wildlife.

It may be easier to find out more about where and how your new native plant was sourced and grown, by purchasing from a smaller, local plant vendor, or an online source which specializes in native plants for biodiversity. It is great to see native plants becoming increasingly available, including in big box stores, but it is good to ask questions about the provenance (i.e. genetic and geographic origin) and treatment of the plants. Asking questions can be a great way to provide feedback to the store that customers are demanding non-treated native plants for their landscapes. If you don’t get the answers you are seeking, it is best to seek plants from other sources.

In a small garden space, removing non-native plants can often be done using largely manual methods – hand tools, laying carboard or mulch to kill grass, etc. However, at a larger scale, heavier-duty mechanical means, accompanied by chemical treatment of non-native plants, may be necessary. Using the right methods at the appropriate time of year can ensure a successful restoration, and while sometimes some of these techniques may be difficult to see in practice, have temporary and transient impacts and are necessary to pave the way for a more resilient and biodiverse ecosystem.

Replacing lawn and establishing a native plant ecosystem does take time and ongoing management. It can be best to start with a very small patch which you can manage and weed to get it established, before moving to another small patch right next door. If you are already part way through a bigger transition, then trying to focus on some of the more persistent, non-native invasive species is important. You may not need to worry too much about “common garden weeds”, as many will be shaded out or outcompeted in various ways as your native plant community establishes. Look up the top 10 invasive species in your area, learn how to identify them, and focus on removing them as they appear. You may also want to keep an eye on whether some of your native plants are doing better than others. You can take a “survival of the fittest” approach and just let them sort themselves out, but this may mean you risk losing some less aggressive native species. If you want to avoid this, then you may need to do some trimming or digging out of more aggressive species, even if they are native.

Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) does not compete well with aggressive plants, including grass. That said, the root system is deeper, so if it can get established, it may do okay. It may not bloom as vigorously if it is experiencing a lot of competition. Common milkweed and swamp milkweed will sometimes compete a bit more, but both prefer wet or moist areas while butterfly weed does better in dry areas. You may want to dig the grass out in a circle a bit wider than the size of the butterfly weed to give it room to expand, and/or lay down some rocks to keep the grass away.

Plant native plants that support specialist insects! Check out Wildr Places app which recommends plants that support butterflies and moths and specialist bees. Or you can check out Homegrown National Park 

Some birds will eat grass seed, including many of our finches and sparrows. Native grasses are also important host plants for many moths and butterflies, so even though they might not have showy flowers visited by charismatic butterflies and bees, they are still incredibly important in our ecosystems and make a great addition to our gardens.

Making your outdoor space more attractive to birds, either via installing feeders, bird baths or native plants, can put them at greater risk of colliding with glass windows, doors and patio railings. Making glass more visible by putting markings on the outside of the glass is a key step. Explore this problem and its many solutions here at the Bird Collision Prevention Alliance webpage. Reducing unnecessary lighting at night is important too – lights disrupt natural rhythms of insects and amphibians, and disorient migrating birds (which fly at night!).

Yes, several birds have been documented feeding on Spotted Lanternflies, including Northern Cardinals, Gray Catbirds, Tufted Titmice, Blue Jays, American Robins, and most species of woodpecker. That said, these non-native invasive insects are new to many places so it might take local bird populations a generation or two to recognize these insects as a food source.

There are many species of milkweed, in fact around 100 species are native to North America! Use a reputable native plant finder database such as Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Centre; Audubon’s plant finder, and several others, to explore milkweeds native to your area. If you are in the U.S. and Canada, do not plant the non-native Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica). Because it does not die back in the winter in warmer, southern areas, monarchs can contract a parasite called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha from the plant. This parasite reduces monarch survival. Don’t forget to also plant early and late flowering native plants to provide nectar to fuel the migration of the adult butterflies.

Establishing a native plant garden or restoration project can be difficult at first, and it is disheartening when wildlife damage plants before they have had a chance to take root and provide the longer-term habitat we are aiming for. The scale of your plantings will determine the best approach. Fencing larger areas with a quality, taught fence to exclude grazers may be necessary. You can also use a similar approach at the scale of a single plant, by building a cage just around one or two vulnerable individuals. Be very careful that any plant protection you install does not endanger wildlife. Avoid loose and very fine string or netting to prevent birds and animals from become entangled. Also be careful to not exclude pollinators, or moths and butterflies which might want to lay eggs on your plants.

You might be able to nestle new plants among rocks or logs to make it more difficult for animals and birds to scratch and dig them out. If you are watering new plants during a very dry spell, this can sometimes attract birds and mammals to dig in search of soil organisms to eat. If water restrictions and availability allow, you can “disguise” the location of your plants by watering more broadly, so that the only damp area in the the neighborhood is not just concentrated around your plant.

If at all possible, try planting several species of plants. This can make it more likely that some plants will survive, as some will do better through different weather and soil conditions, and some may be less palatable to grazers than others.

Explore our Deer-Resistant Native Plants by Region for some planting ideas.

We do not have expertise specific to this product. However, the product website states under the “directions for use” to not use the product if “bees or other pollinators are foraging in the treatment area”.