Get ‘Wild’ in Your Garden By Going Green

BY REBEKAH SCHROEDER

Bid a cold goodbye to the winter frost and start preparing for a modern garden that grows with sustainability in mind, and whether homeowners choose to plant now or plan ahead, they can harvest an environmentally conscious future celebrating the value of nature.

Wild Ones Princeton Designs

The most successful landscapes achieve a balance between aesthetic appeal and practicality. But in time, homeowners can restore the ecosystem of a property by building its environmental resilience and making considerations about the climate.

People of all regions, skill levels, and economic statuses can improve their outdoor spaces, no matter how large or small, by transforming them into an eco-friendly garden with a diverse plant palette.

Wild Ones, a nonprofit organization dedicated to using natural landscape techniques that preserve biodiversity and native plant populations, has published two free, downloadable garden plans for the Princeton mid-Atlantic ecoregion.

Created as part of Wild Ones’ Native Gar- den Designs program, these printable templates include steps for replication, a planting schedule that optimizes the best steps to take in each season, and at least 15 native species in placements and concentrations that add value to the homeowner’s quality of life. People are encouraged to take inspiration from them, whether in full or as ideas, for houses even beyond the styles found in Central New Jersey.

Following a thorough analysis, landscaping professionals Julie Snell and Lisa McDonald Hanes developed these layouts to reintroduce indigenous plants on two contrasting properties: a single-family, one-acre parcel on the outskirts of town with a sloped suburban hill and a multifamily townhouse on a one-fi fth-acre parcel within Princeton.

Once grown, native plants can flourish with little to no watering, fertilizer, pesticides, or mowing, making them a viable, low-maintenance replacement for traditional lawns. These species have become accustomed to the area as a result of evolution and adaptation, with deeper root systems that control the level of water runoff. This prevents overflow and, by extension, mitigates flooding—a rising concern in New Jersey because of the effects of climate change.

See Wild Ones, Page 4