Incorporating Native Plants In Landscaping to Make Gardening Less Work - TN Nursery

Hey there, fellow garden lovers. Welcome to the Native Gardeners Almanac, where we dig deep into gardening. I'm Macy Sons, and today we're talking with Tammy Sons from TN Nursery about a game changer for your landscape native plants. These beauties are stunning and essential for pollinators, wildlife, and the health of our environment. If you've been struggling with high-maintenance plants that need constant watering, fertilizing, and protection from pests, I've got good news. Native plants can do all the heavy lifting for you. Stick around because I'll be sharing some of the best native plants for your garden, how they attract beneficial wildlife, and why they're the future of sustainable gardening. Okay, Tammy Sons, um, can you tell us what are native plants?

Hi, Macy. Good to be with you. Native plants are just easy plants. They've evolved in a specific region for thousands of years. They're adapted to local soil, climate, and wildlife, which makes them naturally resilient. Unlike exotic or invasive species, native plants require very little intervention once they're established. —And if you think about it, Macey, before we had massive nursery productions and imported plants nationwide, nature had already perfected the ideal landscape. Native plants thrive without synthetic fertilizers, excessive watering, herbicides, pesticides, anything like that. They didn't even have fertilizer, you know, they used Mother Nature to care for them. So in short, they're low maintenance, high-rewarding plants that we should all be growing. Uh-huh.

So native plants are like the perfect thing from Mother Nature that we don't have to worry about. But why do they matter?

Well, they matter for so many reasons. I could go on and on, but I know we don't have time for all the reasons, but I could give you a few reasons why native plants matter. They improve the composition of the soil. You know, arsenic and toxins like formaldehyde that's in the soil, native plants help remove all those toxins. Not only that, but they provide food and shelter for pollinators like bees, butterflies, and birds. They rely on native plants for their food, nectar, their seeds. The milkweed plant, for example, it's the only host plant for monarch butterfly caterpillars. So if we didn't have a milkweed plant, we wouldn't have any monarchs. And as everybody knows, the Tennessee Department of Transportation has seen that monarchs are about to get on the extinct species list, and they're giving away free milkweed seeds. So, you know, there's a lot of efforts being undertaken to utilize native plants in gardening. Some other reasons that, you know, native plants is so essential is they require less water and fertilizers. Native plants are perfectly suited for their environment, meaning A homeowner will spend less time dragging around a hose or dumping expensive fertilizers in the soil. It's not needed. You know, Mother Nature grew these before there were gardeners or nurseries or mass production. They help prevent soil erosion. They improve the soil health. They reduce pests naturally because they've adapted to local conditions. Native plants attract beneficial insects. That keep pests in check. You know, so a well-planned native garden is like having your own built-in pest control system. Yeah.

So all in all, it sounds like native plants are top tier when it comes to choosing plants for your garden. Can you tell us what are some of the most must-have native plants for our gardens?

Well, everybody's big into pollinators. But beyond the aesthetics and the need for, you know, bees, birds, and butterflies in our landscape, there's just so many uses for native plants for overall beauty, aesthetics, and landscaping. And, you know, I can tell you based off bestsellers at Tia Nursery, what's really, really trending, you know, in gardens for spring 2025, the Monarda, the bee balm, Pollinators go crazy for this one. It's fragrant, colorful, and it attracts bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Plus, you know, you can make herbal teas from it. Yeah. Another one, Macy, would be the red trillium. It's a shade-loving perennial, and it adds a pop of that deep red color to any woodland garden. It's great for shade gardens, and it's one of the most beloved wildflowers, you know, that there is, and trigums are really exotic. They don't start blooming until, you know, they're like 5 years old or older. So all of our perennials at TN Nursery are mature blooming age. So that would be a really good one. Another one that pollinators love, and it's beautiful in native garden settings, is the red cardinal flower. It's got a striking red blooming color and it thrives in wet areas. It attracts hummingbirds like crazy and it's perfect for rain gardens. Water, you know, water features or near water's edges like ponds and lakes. It's another good one.

All good choices. So say I already have a garden full of traditional plants, but I want to switch to native plants. How would I do that?

Well, you really need to start small. Begin by replacing a few non-natives with native alternatives. For example, swap out the Knock Out roses, swap out some of those for, you know, like a native elderberry bush or, you know, Carolina allspice. You'll find that pests are nothing like on native plants like they are on the hybrids and the manmade. Just start swapping them out. Swap out your hybrids. Your non-natives with natives and do it slow, make it a slow process. And you know, another thing you need to try to do is plant it in layers, like mimic the natural ecosystem by incorporating, say, maybe start with ground covers, some mid-sized perennials, and then do taller shrubs or trees in the back. You know, that that provides diversity and it creates a habitat. And it also, by planting the larger, you know, plants in the back, everything can be seen. And another thing I would really recommend is to ditch the chemicals. Native plants don't need synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, or pesticides. You know, let nature take the lead. And Many big box stores don't carry a wide selection of native plants, but at TN Nursery, that's what I try to stay within is that native plant sector. Something that's low maintenance, easy to care for, that comes back every year. And busy people that works every day don't have time to deal with these, these non-natives. All right.

So it would be easy to switch over our garden stuff. Hopefully more people start to do that because What do you think the future of native gardening could be?

I think the future of native gardening is amazingly big, but I think it's not the future, it's the present. The local malls, the local shopping outlets, all the new development is really gearing towards low-maintenance native plants, trees, perennials, and shrubs. And the reason is they have to pay landscapers thousands of dollars for upkeep, you know, in these big industrial parks. Native plants, you simply plant them, let them go. They're low maintenance, they're pest and disease resistant. So I feel like that it's the present, really not the future.

Native plants is really in. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you, Tammy Sons, for joining us on our podcast today and answering all of our questions. That's it for today's episode. I hope you feel inspired to start incorporating native plants into your garden. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe to our podcast to hear more, leave a review, and share it with a fellow gardener. And hey, I'd love to hear from you. What's your favorite native plant? And do you have any more plants to talk about with us? Uh, tag us on Instagram @tnnursery or drop a comment on our website, tnnursery.net. Until next time, happy planting.