TREES + SHRUBS

• Provide essential habitats for pollinators, birds, and mammals. Plant woodies in layers; different birds nest at different heights.

• Buds, leaves, flowers and fruits, nuts or acorns provide seasonable nutrition. Leaf litter, fallen branches and/or decaying wood provide other habitats while enriching the soil with nutrients.

• Stabilize the soil and absorb thousands of gallons of water, preventing rapid run-off during storms and keeping the water table full.

• Buffer climate conditions by providing shade to cool our communities and help screen the wind and cold of winter. (Birds need shade and winter protection too.)

• Support essential cycles like the water, nitrogen cycle, and carbon cycle.

• Improve air quality.

• Beauty - Virginia’s native trees are diverse, colorful, majestic, sheltering, calming, and so much more.

Do

• Plant any time of year that the ground is not frozen or saturated (planting in wet soil causes harmful compaction). If you plant in summer, you may need to do a lot of watering! Spring and fall are great, and fall is ideal.

• Make a hole just slightly wider and no deeper than the plant

• Place the plant so its base is at ground level.

• Water well that day and the next, then twice a week for a couple weeks, then weekly through the first growing season. A good 1” rain counts as watering.

• Cover bare soil with dead leaves, pine needles, straw or store-bought mulches made of plant material. Check in with your local municipality for locally recycled mulch or utilize fallen leaves found in your neighborhood.

Don’t

• Overwater. For plants that prefer dry soil, let it dry out between watering.

• Amend the soil (unless planting in construction clay or in naturally poorer soil than the plant you’ve selected prefers, in which case throw in a handful or two of compost).

• Fertilize.

• Use pesticides. That would kill the life we are trying to support!

• Let mulch touch the plants.

Live in Northern Virginia?

The Plant NOVA Natives Campaign offers a webpage compiling the resources available in the region to help you plan your native landscaping.