The team at our sister blog, Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens, has been posting about Native Plant alternatives to commonly used plants.
So far there has been:
Plant This, Not That: California Natives Edition
Plant This, Not That: New Jersey Natives Edition
and most recently Plant This, Not That: Connecticut Natives Edition
I thought I would take up the banner here at Beautiful Wildlife Gardens, and give you some native plant alternatives New York style. I am still learning about additional plants to add to my native gardens, and while many of the photographs in this post are mine, some are not. Unfortunately some of my newer plants have not grown enough this year for pictures. So where necessary I will be crediting the pictures that are not mine.
I decided to highlight native alternatives to ordinary plants that may be over used in gardens and that are also invasive, especially in New York State. After all many gardeners do not know that these commonly used plants are invasive especially when they purchase them locally or by mail order. Who would sell an invasive plant?? These must be all right if they are selling them. And many are featured in gardening magazines as plants to have. So I should plant them, right?
Of course the scary answer is garden centers and mail order companies will sell what ever is popular including invasive plants. So it is up to us to learn what we should and should not plant.
Do not plant anything but a native honeysuckle. The list of invasive bush honeysuckles is long; Lonicera tatarica; L. maackii and L.morrowii. Then there is the invasive vine Lonicera japonica or Japanese honeysuckle. If you want to attract hummingbirds you can’t beat the native Lonicera sempervirens or Scarlet Honeysuckle. It grows in part shady and sunny conditions, dry to moist and in all types of soils. Mine grows in dry, part shade and clay soil. And look how gorgeous. I can see these red/orange beauties lighting up this shady corner from anywhere in my garden. It is a big hang out for those hummingbirds too. In the fall the berries that form are devoured by the songbirds. Easy to care for and very hardy, it will take a good pruning in spring and still flower profusely.
The next plant to trade in is the ever popular barberry or Berberis thunbergii. These invasive plants can be found practically on every street in America. They are sought after because they need little care, have fall color and red berries in fall and winter. So what can we plant instead? I love Winterberry or Ilex verticillata. The birds love this shrub for its berries. I find birds don’t eat the barberry berries. Winterbery tolerates a range of planting conditions and especially loves moist areas. The one thing to remember is you need to have at least one male shrub for a number of females to get the berries.
Next on the hit list are the ever popular ground covers Periwinkle (Vinca minor, V.major) and Snow on the Mountain/Bishop’s Weed (Aegopodium podagraria). These invasives are taking over the woodlands in my state and if you have ever planted them by mistake you know how hard it is to get rid of them. Instead I suggest you plant wild ginger (Asarum canadense) pictured below or wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) pictured right. I bought both these plants from a wonderful local native plant nursery about an hour away, Amanda’s Garden. The pictures of the wild 
geranium and wild ginger are from Amanda’s garden since my ground covers are just starting to take hold. Wild geranium is great under trees and will tolerate the shade, dry soil and organic matter found there. What a gorgeous flower too. Wild ginger likes it a bit more moist and is a great food source for Pipevine Swallowtail Butterflies.
Another popular plant that many folks don’t realize is invasive is Rose of Sharon or Hibiscus syriacus. A better choice is the native hibiscus or Swamp Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos or Hibiscus grandiflorus) pictured at the beginning of the post. These beauties are adaptable growing in dry to moist conditions up to 8 feet tall. They love the sun and will produce, pink, white and red flowers from medium to huge dinner plate sized blooms loved by hummingbirds.
Lastly is the too used Euonymus alatus or Burning Bush. I almost think it is invasive because so many people have it. And yes it has a gorgeous red color come fall, but so does the Highbush Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum). Besides the blueberry has delicious fruit for you and the birds. Of course the rabbits will eat my smaller bushes as they are growing so I do protect them until they are more established. These bushes will grow in a variety of conditions. Mine prefer moist, sunny conditions in acidic soil, and can grow up to 6 feet tall.
So why plant the common ordinary plants everyone has when you can plant the more diverse, unusual and critter loving plants? Be different for a change….
“A garden is an awful responsibility. You never know what you may be aiding to grow in it.” ~ Charles Dudley Warner
© 2011 – 2012, Donna Donabella. All rights reserved. This article is the property of BeautifulWildlifeGarden.com If you are reading this at another site, please report that to us
About Donna Donabella
LOVE your choices!
May all your gardens grow,
Jan
Thx Jan..glad you enjoyed the alternate choices…
Donna@Gardens Eye View recently posted..Gardens Eye Verse-December
I did not realize that vinca was an invasive variety. I don’t have any, but I used to wish I did.
commonweeder recently posted..Festival of Trees
Pat depending on the reference sites and books it is invasive in a large portion of the US… definitely in NY, New England and much of the S, SW, W and some Midwest. I used to have some too and still pull it out…
Donna Donabella recently posted..Gardens Eye Verse-December
I could wish Wild Ginger was a little more durable about establishing—I’ve killed a couple myself! I’d also suggest Meehan’s Mint for a shady groundcover, in lieu of bluestar creeper and some similar plants—it’s native to your neck of the woods, and it can put on an astonishing show when it’s happy!
UrsulaV recently posted..Fuzzy-Wuzzy
Thx Ursula…I will let you know how the Ginger does…I’ll certainly check out the mint…looks lovely!!
Donna Donabella recently posted..Gardens Eye Verse-December
Donna,
Great alternatives, Wild Geraniums and Wild Ginger are some of my favorites.
Heather
Heather recently posted..Fragile (Brittle) Prickly Pear ~ Opuntia fragilis
Heather I can’t wait for them to grow in…glad you enjoyed the post!!
Donna Donabella recently posted..Gardens Eye Verse-December
Hi Donna,
ahhhh, makes me miss NY some, but most of your suggestions are native down here in FL…although some only in the northern section of the state.
I have to admit I have a warm place in my heart for Rose of Sharon. It is how I got my gardening wings when I was young in NY. Our house had a small backyard with two ROS trees, one purple (mine) and one white (my sister’s). Below each we were given a patch of maybe 3 ft x 3 ft to maintain and plant as we wished. I still remember pulling out the THOUSANDS of ROS seedlings occasionally allowing one to get larger and cleaning up the hundred of dropped (gooey) buds. While having learned about invasives and their detriment to our environment, I’m not sure my sister and I would have the same appreciation of gardening had those two prolific trees not been there to nurture us.
Loret T. Setters recently posted..Bug Gangs
Oh Loret what a wonderful memory. ROS is a lovely shrub/tree…too bad it is invasive. We can still honor those memories. Lovely to know that many natives in NY are native to parts of FL too…
Donna@Gardens Eye View recently posted..Gardens Eye Verse-December
Nice post, Donna. You came up with some wonderful native alternatives for a NY garden. I enjoy seeing the native plants in different regions. That’s a great thing about natives: They provide a sense of place~
Kathy @nativegardener recently posted..Anna’s Hummingbirds, the Hummingbirds of Winter
Thx Kathy. Glad you enjoyed it. it is fascinating seeing all the natives and how some are so very different and others are similar for many regions…
Donna Donabella recently posted..Gardens Eye Verse-December
What a fantastic post. I recently purchased the book Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants which also has some great ideas. I just pulled a volunteer honeysuckle shrub from my garden which I’m sure was invasive. And I confess, I do have a burning bush only because it was the first plant I rooted from a cutting but I just learned that there is a native burning bush (!) and will be replacing mine – the Eastern Wahoo, Euonymus atropurpurea. This spring I hope to hack and pull the large barberry out front. It was practically the only shrub we had when we moved in, but now that I’ve been planting for three years, it’s time to replace it. My native honeysuckle vine is still blooming if you can believe it! I have purchased plants from Amanda’s Garden and highly recommend. I have most of the plants you have mentioned – invasive and native – ha!
I love that book. It helps to know what you can do to reduce the invasives and what plants are good alternatives. I saw the Eastern Wahoo and was intrigued as well. I also still have a number of invasives I continue to replace. So glad you like Amanda’s Gardens. Ellen is wonderful to work with there.
Donna@Gardens Eye View recently posted..The Making of a Meadow
I like your choices. I joined an invasives removal group this fall – we focussed on buckthorns, but Tartarian honeysuckle is choking our woodlands as well. Burning bush is on its way to becoming as bad a pest. I have written about my landscaping alternatives to burning bush on my blog.
Periwinkle is just one of whole class of evergreen ground covers that are promoted as low-maintenance alternatives to grass, and most of them are bad or potentially bad invasives. I mean, if it can smother weeds, what will it do to a hepatica or a walking fern? I am going to think about alternatives for a bit and hope to post soon…
Trish Murphy recently posted..Virginia wild rose: Plant This, Not That
Trish wonderful post on your blog. I cringe when I see the alternatives to grass and they are invasive ground covers…so glad you enjoyed the post!! I look forward to more of your posts.
the creeping mint is on my list & as well as phlox – but first we need to deer fence the backyard, or it is just pointless.. i wish we had an american wisteria instead of the asian one out back. we also have 2 remaining buddleia which i can’t bring myself to remove until the native alternatives are established and happy – those are quite invasive as well, have been pulling the volunteers out as i see them. we also have japanese knotweed, an invasive rose, and bane of my gardening existence, running bamboo that i’m trying to kill off, or at least control.. the latter has taken over a good portion of our yard, and our 2 neighbors’ yards, and comes up through the driveway too. ##!@!@#!!!!
Julianna this is great to hear…we all have our invasives we are trying to get rid of…my mistakes are many but it is the continuous trying to make improvements that is most important…thx for sharing!!
Donna Donabella recently posted..Third Day of Christmas