Favorite Natives

Brandywine Viburnum – beautiful, adaptable, and reliable The whole Viburnum family are great shrubs, but today we’ll be talking about one that is looking more and more beautiful everyday – Viburnum nudum ‘Brandywine’. Because the berries are desirable to birds and the flowers to pollinators, this is the ideal shrub for your garden to become […]

Oakleaf hydrangea – a spot of early summer color in the shade The Oakleaf hydrangea , Hydrangea quercifolia, is a dramatic, white-blooming shrub with four seasons of interest. Native to the eastern United States, it is a gorgeous and versatile deciduous shrub which provides a spectacular show all year round. Named after the shape of […]

A beautiful native shrub that is blooming now is the Fothergilla.  This native shrub deserves the spotlight for its fall foliage show, and spring flowers, ease of care, and versatility round out a profile of a beautiful and multipurpose plant. (Did I mention the gorgeous fall color?) These native shrubs are useful as foundation plants, […]

One of the stand out plants in the fall garden is Pink Muhly grass, Muhlenbergia capillaris. With its clouds of pinkish purple plumes dancing in the wind making a stunning display, it will stop traffic in your neighborhood. Muhly grass is native to the southern and eastern United States. They often grow in dry or […]

The purple coneflower – Echinacea purpurea – is one of the most common, and loved native wildflowers. It is beautiful, easy care, not a deer favorite, and comes in different sizes and colors. We wrote about coneflowers last year, but there have been new varieties introduced, and we have learned more about them, so we […]

Switch grass – Nothing to panic about, a wonderful plant Switch grass, also known as Panic grass, or Panicum virgatum, is one of the most common grasses found here on the Delmarva coast. It is easily grown in average, medium to wet soils in full sun to part shade, and it tolerates a wide range […]

In these dog days of summer, when it’s so hot and humid outside, something healthy, flowering and green is a welcome sight in the garden. There is one shrub that shines this time of year, and that is the shrub aptly known as Summersweet or Sweet pepperbush, or Clethra alnifolia. Clethra is native to the […]

Our three favorite native picks for this month are unique in their own way. Each one is a fabulous choice for lanscaping with native plants since they will bring an abundance of wildlife to your backyard.

This week’s Coastal Point newspaper feature is “Coreopsis — called tickseed, but not for ticks” by Liz Nalle. Thank you Coastal Point newspaper! COASTAL POINT: The coreopsis family, also known as tickseeds, are just about the ideal garden plant — long bloom time, low maintenance, gorgeous flowers and good foliage. What more could you ask […]

Red Maples are easy to grow, provide great shade, have beautiful flowers in the spring and gorgeous fall color. Have you seen a tree with branches that look like they are tinged red or pink recently? It’s probably a Red Maple, Acer rubrum if you want the Latin name, one of our most common native […]