Choosing Native Plants

The Indiana Native Plant Society offers the Indiana Native Plant Finder, which allows you to use various filters to get suggestions for native plants that may fit your sun, soil and other site conditions. (Screenshot of Indiana Native Plant Society website)

April means warmer weather, Earth Day and Arbor Day. What better way to celebrate spring than by planting native trees and shrubs.

Not only can they add interesting appeal to your home landscape. They also can clean the air, store carbon and provide food and shelter for pollinators and wildlife.

But what to plant?

First, check out where you’d like to plant so you know the sun/shade situation and whether the soil is dry, wet or somewhere in the middle. Most areas in and around Fort Wayne have clay soil, which gives you some flexibility on what will grow.

Our area is fortunate to have some native plant nurseries where you can buy plants, shrubs and tree species that historically grew naturally in Indiana. They include Riverview Native Nursery in northern Allen County, a partnership with Rozelle Lawn & Landscape; Sanctuary Native Nursery in southwest Allen County; and Chapman Lake Nursery in Warsaw.

Check out their websites for information about plants they offer and special events they have planned. Staff at the nurseries can help you make native plant selections.

FINDING HELP

You also can use the Indiana Native Plant Finder feature on the website of the Indiana Native Plant Society (INPS), https://finder.indiananativeplants.org. The “All” setting allows you to scroll through 231 varieties of plants, shrubs and trees.

Drop-down boxes also allow users to set filters for the type of plant, such as trees, shrubs, grasses/sedges, wildflowers, ferns and vines. In addition, users can set filters for light level (sun, part-shade or shade), soil moisture level, bloom color, bloom season, various pollinators and other notable characteristics, such as whether it grows well in a container.

The Finder also offers a sliding scale to filter for plant height. The scale only goes up to 50 feet, but the search results will list trees that grow taller than that. Strangely, it lists no oaks and only box elder and red maple from the maple family.

The Finder search returns images of plants that fit your criteria. Click on the images or the plant names to see more details about each native plant species, such as its beneficial characteristics, height, bloom color and what pollinators it attracts.

Here are a few suggestions from the Indiana Native Plant Finder. All grow in sun to partial shade:

Shrubs: Fragrant sumac, gray dogwood, leadplant, New Jersey tea, pagoda dogwood, prairie willow and coralberry.

Trees: Ohio buckeye, flowering dogwood, persimmon, red maple and American basswood.

MORE OPTIONS

Local native plant nursery websites list an even wider array of tree and shrub options.

Tree possibilities range from oaks and maples to eastern redbud, sweetgum, sycamore and tulip poplar.

Shrubs available include arrowwood viburnum, buttonbush, ninebark, smooth hydrangea, spicebush, winterberry holly and witch hazel.

THINKING AHEAD

When planting native trees and shrubs, you also may want to consider how future climate may impact their survival. With Indiana predicted to have warmer, wetter winters and springs and hotter, dryer summers and falls, some species may struggle, especially in city settings.

Experts affiliated with Purdue University provided some insight in the May 2018 publication, “Maintaining Indiana’s Urban Green Spaces: A Report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment.”

By the year 2100 and assuming continued high greenhouse gas emissions, the report suggests the following trees could have a more difficult time thriving in northern Indiana: American hornbeam, black maple, eastern white pine, northern red oak, serviceberry and white oak.

Some trees, the report said, actually may find the changing climate more suitable to their liking: common persimmon, eastern hophornbeam, eastern redbud, eastern red cedar, hackberry, honeylocust, silver maple, sweetgum and yellow poplar.

Certain trees likely will not be affected significantly either way, including black oak, bur oak, Ohio buckeye, red maple, river birch, sugar maple, swamp white oak and sycamore.

THINK POSITIVE

While we can’t predict with certainty what will happen with the weather or climate, science has shown that trees, shrubs and flowers benefit the environment, and our sense of well-being. So celebrate Earth Day and Arbor Day by planting a tree or shrub. Birds, bugs and your neighbors will thank you.