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Native plants for yards and gardens

Sustainable living  ›  Home improvement  ›  Native plants for yards and gardens

Find out how native plants are good for people, pets, the planet and your pocketbook.

The challenge  

Many people use pesticides, chemicals and fertilizers to keep their gardens and yards pest-free and green. These harmful chemicals are washed into rivers and streams when in rains, causing risks to human health and fish and wildlife.

A nature-friendly solution

Native plants are drought- and disease-resistant so they require less water and do not need pesticides, chemicals or fertilizers to thrive. When combined with natural gardening techniques like composting, planting natives helps keep gardens, yards, rivers and streams healthy and safe for families, pets and wildlife.  

Healthy homes for all

Native plants are "born and raised" in the local environment; they have 'grown up' together with native wildlife and insects. So including native plants in your back yard or landscaping provides the best food and shelter for the native species that call the Pacific Northwest home. Remember, native plants attract native bugs, and native bugs attract native birds and wildlife.

Benefits of native plants and natural gardening

Native plants and natural gardening practices:

• save water, energy, time and money
• require less maintenance and upkeep
• keep local streams and rivers healthy
• attract birds, butterflies and beneficial wildlife to your yard
• protect fish and wildlife habitat
• are easy to find and inexpensive to use

Resources

• Metro's natural gardening program
  Metro, OR
  Classes, resources and easy-to-use information on natural gardening, healthy lawns and more
• Naturescaping for Clean Rivers
  City of Portland, OR
  Natural gardening techniques, workshops and native plant lists and posters
• Native plant finder
  Clean Water Services, OR
  Choose your soil type, sunlight needs, growing rate, plant and foliage type and find the best native plants for your home
• Native plant list
  City of Portland, OR
  Native and invasive plant lists for the Portland metropolitan region (Metro is referring native plant requests to this site till its native list is updated.)

Files that are downloadable from this page

• Factsheet: Gardening naturally makes your home more nature-friendly 390K Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published March 24, 2008