Native Plants

Native Plants are used in restoration plantings and are low maintenance.

Tn Nurseries Best Selling Native Plants

1. Mayapple

2. Milkweed

3. Goldenrod

4. Coneflower

5. Shooting Star

Many conditions will cause the natural landscape to experience imbalance or destruction, referred to as a "disturbance event." A disturbance event can occur through either natural or artificial phenomena. Examples of natural disturbance events include weather disasters, floods, pestilence, disease, and wildfires; artificial disturbance events include farming, livestock grazing, logging, river damming, and urban development. Regardless of the cause, a disturbance event will likely alter the ecology structure and function of the affected landscape.

Ecosystems worldwide have focused on restoration efforts with native plants, focusing on wetlands, stream banks, watersheds, riparian areas, and forests. Restoration efforts can be accomplished through either natural restoration or active restoration. The natural restoration model anticipates the land will recover independently; this takes time, and results are not assured. The active restoration model requires human intervention in land recovery to accelerate and oversee the balance of ecosystem recovery. This second model is accomplished through active restoration planting.

The Purpose of Restoration Plantings with Native plants

The primary purpose of restoration with native plants is to restore the land after a disturbance event through habitat replanting, stream bank support, field recovery, and erosion containment. Restoration efforts can be designed to restore the pre-disturbance ecosystem, such as wetlands, stream banks, and forestry recovery. Other projects endeavor to improve or create a new ecosystem, such as erosion control, federal urban development recovery, and pollination. In either case, the human intervention in active restoration planting will accelerate the ecosystem's recovery and assure its healthy balance.

Government agencies, companies, and individual landowners, engaged in active restoration planting re-establish the affected land by utilizing ingenuity, diversity, and sustainability by introducing mitigation and native plants.

Mitigation Plants Defined

Mitigation plants are typically native species of trees, saplings, seedlings, grasses, and ground cover suited to the local environment - this is especially true in wetland and woodland ecosystems. The implementation of mitigation plants is strategically planned to ensure genetic diversity and propagation. The principle here is that native plantings from a local region have the best chance of cohesive sustainability, thereby assuring a healthy balance to the recovering ecosystem.

How Native Plants Are Used

The use of diverse trees, plants, and varietal vegetation promotes a balance in the recovering ecosystem. For example, incorporating a variety of tree species meets the goal of creating a diverse habitat. In addition, the more extensive, fibrous root systems inherent with trees provide a stabilizing effect for the soil. The tree further protects and encourages the propagation of more fragile vegetation under its shade canopy and through its ability to function as a windbreak. Through another technique called "live stake" and "brush layer," live branching is seeded for erosion control, ground roughing, and vegetation proliferation.

The Goal of Restoration Planting

Restoration planting plays a vital and integral role in ensuring environmental health during any land recovery project. The goal is to establish an ecosystem balanced by integrating diverse native species of plants, thereby ensuring bio-recovery success. Whether in the recovery of wetlands, stream bank restoration, fields, or forest, restoration planting is the critical element in the ecosystem's assured proliferation, recovery, and balance. Diversity use of native plants lends proliferation to the recovery, symbiotic interest to the environment, balance to the surrounding ecosystem, and a visually appealing aspect to the land.