Native Plants Making a Comeback

Once these stunning plants were only found in wild prairie gardens, native plant gardens or other specialized themed gardens. Now many are part of mixed borders!

Writing my most recent plant profile about perennial Penstemons I started thinking about how these beautiful native wildflowers are now more readily available for average gardeners. Plant hybridizers are producing new and useful cultivars to provide more choices for home gardeners to add to their container plantings, mixed flower borders and foundation planters around the house to increase curb appeal.

There are several new introductions available recently from gardening companies and catalogs that feature plants who were once outcasts and not so readily available or widely used. Other native wildflowers that are increasing in popularity are Columbines, Echinaceas (no long just purple coneflowers), Penstemon as I mentioned, and Coreopsis. As more gardeners are increasingly looking for water-wise flower choices or non-invasive native plants I expect to see this trend continue.