When choosing plants for your home and yard, don’t pick up any old hot-house special. Think about the style of your home. Just as you choose clothes that flatter your skin tone and the occasion, choose flowers that reflect the color and style of your home.
But wait! Don’t buy plants that are drought intolerate or invasive. You’ll achieve the best results by choosing native plants that flatter your home’s personality while also coordinating with the character of your regional environment.
Home Style and Plant Go-Togethers
Formal homes require dramatic plants that have a definite shape. Boxwood and plants from bulbs such as tulips, and daffodils filled English formal gardens and made their way to American. Formal Georgian homes all along the east coast boast these historic plants. Formal homes also like dwarf plant varieties especially for use in window boxes and symmetrical pairings at entryways.
Rustic homes demand weathered-wood window boxes filled with fluffy and irregularly-shaped plants. Try ferns and mix in a variety of sizes and colors of bright-colored favorites like black-eyed Susans, snapdragons, and zinnias. Place taller and darker colors in back and step down to smaller plants and lighter shades. Wildflower meadows with mulched paths can beautifully replace the traditional grass lawn around a rustic and contemporary homes.
Victorian homes and farmhouse styles look best with old-fashioned flowers in pastel shades. Look for violets, phlox, nasturtiums, and lavender. Decorate the front porch with bright-colored pots and metal plant stands filled with begonias and geraniums.
Styles and colors that harmonize are guaranteed to boost interest. Contrasting colors can be elegant.
Lavendar, thyme, basil, other herbs, and soft evergreen plants add soft notes when used in combination with a few hot yellow and orange or dark purple plants. There are many, many shapes and sizes of ferns and ornamental grasses that can cover your lawn. Consider minimizing grass lawns with these.
Visit a botanical garden for inspiration.
Choose Plants for Their Relationship to Your World
In addition to choosing plants that relate to your home style, be sure that they relate to your local environment. Native plants will thrive in the local climate and save money and time in the long run.
While choosing plants that coordinate with your color scheme you can also feed the birds. Native plants naturally attract birds, butterflies, and other wildlife that are native to your area and depend upon them for food. Attract hummingbirds with flowers like Columbine, Trumpet Creeper, Jewelweed, and Cardinal Flower. Salvia attracts hummingbirds and comes in colors in addition to their well-known red variety.
Other native plants attract butterflies. Asters and Milkweeds are a great source of nectar. Some, like the Pawpaw, are important as a host plant: Zebra Swallowtails use Pawpaw and only Pawpaw in their reproductive cycle. Yarrow hosts Painted Lady butterflies.
In dry areas, learn about “xeriscaping” your lawn. Replace thirsty grass with drought-tolerant plants. In the Chesapeake Bay area, employ "Bayscaping" techniques to conserve and to reduce runoff and pollution that sends nutrients to the Bay.
Becoming more knowledgeable about plants is a natural way to achieve greater artistic and spiritual satisfaction.
Read more about the importance of selecting native plants that attract insects!
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