A landscape full of plants that evolved in your climate looks better, costs less to maintain, and supports the pollinators and birds that make a yard feel alive. After three decades of building landscapes in Pennsylvania, here are the natives we keep coming back to.

Why Go Native

Pennsylvania natives are wired for our soil, our rainfall pattern, and our winters. Once they are established, they generally need no supplemental irrigation, no fungicides, and very little fertilizer. They also feed the pollinators, songbirds, and beneficial insects that nonnative ornamentals do not support.

Perennials We Plant Constantly

• Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta): Tough, sunny, and reliable from July to first frost.
• Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea): Drought-tolerant, deer-resistant, and a magnet for butterflies and goldfinches.
• Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa): Lavender-purple blooms in midsummer and a hummingbird favorite.
• Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium): A native ornamental grass that turns copper-red in fall and looks incredible in winter light.
• Foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia): Our go-to for shaded beds under mature oaks and maples.

Shrubs With Year-Round Interest

• Winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata): Drops its leaves in late fall and reveals brilliant red berries that hold all winter.
• Inkberry (Ilex glabra): Native evergreen, finer-textured than boxwood, no winter burn.
• Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica): Fragrant white spring flowers and stunning burgundy fall color.
• Smooth hydrangea Annabelle (Hydrangea arborescens): Massive white blooms, native to the eastern US, deer leave it alone.

Trees That Belong Here

• Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis): Magenta flowers before the leaves emerge, heart-shaped leaves all summer.
• Serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis): Four-season interest: white spring flowers, edible berries in June, brilliant fall color, smooth gray bark.
• Sweetbay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana): Lemon-scented summer flowers, semi-evergreen, tolerates wet feet.

How to Phase It In

If your existing landscape is mostly nonnative, you do not need to rip it out. Start by replacing high-maintenance plants as they age out, and dedicate one bed per year to a native overhaul. Within three or four seasons you will have a meaningfully lower-maintenance, more interesting landscape.

Our design team builds landscapes around the plants that thrive in Bucks and Montgomery County, not just whatever is in stock at the box store. See our landscape design services or schedule a free consultation.