Have you ever wanted to create a rain garden, build a soakaway or plant a soggy area of your yard? You can now use CVC’s Native Plants for Rain-ready Landscapes plant list to find the right native plants to create beautiful rain-ready landscapes that slow down and soak up rainwater on your property.
Planting to manage rainwater can help you reduce flooding and water pollution—beautifully! Rain gardens and other rain-ready landscapes showcase attractive plants and allow rainwater to slowly soak into the earth where it nurtures plants and recharges groundwater supplies. This helps prevent water from running over sidewalks and roads where it picks up pollutants and then flows into local storm drains where it eventually ends up in our rivers and lakes.
Here’s a sneak peek of a few great choices for your rain-ready yard.
For soggier spots: Spotted Joe Pye weed, Harlequin blue flag (blue flag iris), swamp milkweed and white turtlehead are plants well suited to low-lying wetter areas of rain gardens and landscape features. Where you have the space, shrubs such as northern spicebush, white meadowsweet and black chokeberry are also a good choice.
For higher, drier ground: Butterfly milkweed, little bluestem and pearly everlasting are great choices for the drier areas of rain-ready landscape features, like the high zone of a rain garden. Drought-tolerant shrubs such as shrubby cinquefoil and common juniper also make excellent borders that help your garden blend seamlessly into the rest of your yard. Wild strawberry can make a great groundcover, helping to anchor soils, fill in gaps and tie plantings together. They also provide a little snack for visitors like birds and small mammals.
Find other plants for your rain-ready projects in our new Native Plants for Rain-ready Landscapes plant list.
Photo credit: Sky blue aster by Joshua Mayer