Home & Garden Garden Live in the Northeast? Try These Native Plants in Your Landscape Instead of Exotics By Tom Oder Writer Furman University. Tom Oder is a writer, editor, and communication expert who specializes in sustainability and the environment with a sweet spot for urban agriculture. our editorial process Twitter Twitter Tom Oder Updated June 05, 2017 Share Twitter Pinterest Email Home & Garden Planting Guides Indoor Gardening Urban Farms Insects Buttonbush. Will-travel/Flickr In an attempt to help homeowners achieve the same aesthetic goals with native plants as they do with more commonly available non-natives, we’ve been working with plant experts to point to worthwhile natives for each region of the country. This time, we’re digging into native plant choices for the Northeast. It all started with a story about Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware and a leading proponent of landscaping with native plants, asking American homeowners to adopt a new definition of curb appeal. Tallamy’s definition of curb appeal reduces lawns by 50 percent and features groups of diverse native trees, shrubs and flowers lining each side of the lawn with a small, central grassy area that guides the eyes of passersby through the landscape to a focal point on the house, such as a door. His goal is to convince homeowners to substitute native plants for exotics in their landscape. His challenge is to get them to understand that they can do this without making their yards look wild and messy. The Northeast, as defined by the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, extends from Kentucky and Virginia through Indiana to Michigan on its western edge to Maine along the East Coast. The USDA zones in the Northeast range from 3a (coldest in the region) in the northernmost areas of Michigan and Maine to 8a (warmest) on the Virginia coast below Norfolk. Tallamy characterizes non-native “exotics” as anything that evolves outside of a local food web. “Food webs are typically large, and plant provenance usually becomes limiting before the food web does,” he said. Exotic introductions have become popular in the nursery trade, the landscape industry and with many homeowners for a variety of reasons. They are not so appealing to insects, however. That's because there's a good chance insects won't recognize exotic plants as a source of food or a place to lay their eggs. Tallamy wants homeowners to understand this is important because the entire food web begins with insects. Our thanks to Tallamy for providing the plant list below. It contains commonly seen exotic introductions and native plant alternatives for a variety of landscape uses — canopy, understory, shrubs, and ground covers. It is not meant to be a complete list, just a good starting point for the conversation. We invite you to join the conversation by offering your comments and sharing the series with your friends and neighbors. Canopy Commonly seen introductions: Norway maple, Norway spruce, sawtooth oak, dawn redwood, purple beech, Little leaf linden, Chinese elm. Readily available natives: ATIS547/Flickr Persimmon geneva_wirth/Flickr Sugar maple Bob Gutowski/Flickr White oak geneva_wirth/Flickr White pine Tim Ross/Wikimedia Commons American beech Benefits of these natives: Unlike the non-natives, the native species support more than 700 species of caterpillars alone. These in turn support migrating and breeding birds. Their seeds and fruits also support many mammals. *** Understory Commonly seen introductions: Golden raintree, Katsura tree, Bradford pear, Kuanzan cherry. Readily available natives: Distant Hill Gardens/Flickr Alternate leaf dogwood Jason Sturner/Flickr Fringetree Phillip Merritt/Flickr Ironwood (Carpinus caroliniana and Ostrya virginiana) Wafer ash Benefits of these natives: The non-natives are used for aesthetics but contribute little to nothing to local food webs. Moreover, Bradford pear is highly invasive. Alternate leaf dogwood, in contrast, supports pollinators and has a copious berry set in midsummer. The ironwoods supply valuable seed for wintering birds and support many caterpillar species. Wafer ash is the host to the giant swallowtail butterfly, and fringetree supports several species of sphinx moths. *** Shrubs Commonly seen introductions: Burning bush, privet, bush honeysuckle, Japanese barberry. Readily available natives: Viridis13/Flickr Swamp-haw viburnum (Viburnum nudum) Eleanor/Flickr Buttonbush Kingsbrae Garden/Flickr Sweet pepper bush jacki-dee/Flickr Filbert Benefits of these natives: Whereas burning bush, privet, bush honeysuckle and barberry are all highly invasive, native Viburnums and filbert together support hundreds of species of caterpillars and produce fruits and nuts for wintering animals. Sweet pepperbush and buttonbush are both superior targets for nectaring butterflies. *** Ground cover Commonly seen introductions: Pachysandra, English ivy, periwinkle. Readily available natives: J Brew/Flickr Wild ginger U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region/Flickr Bloodroot Joshua Mayer/Flickr Phlox divaricata stevbach1/Flickr Foamflower Benefits of these natives: The non-native English ivy and periwinkle are invasive species and, as with Pachysandra, contribute nothing to local food webs. The natives listed form dense ground covers and are all attractive spring ephemerals that support native bee populations.