Over the last several years, we have observed rising interest amongst many landowners we work with to increase native plant habitats around their property, often in places where turfgrass is struggling or challenging to maintain. In these areas where there is bare soil that is eroding, using native plants and native groundcovers can be especially beneficial to address and prevent further soil loss. Aside from these soil health benefits, many landowners are also motivated to add native plants to their landscape to provide a food source and habitat for pollinator species.
While the benefits of landscaping with native plants are widely understood, we still encounter some hesitation and concern about what a native plant habitat looks like, and many assume that native habitats are filled with overgrown vegetation that looks wild and unkempt. Although there are plenty of online resources that demonstrate various styles of landscaping with native plants, it is often difficult to picture the plants incorporated into a specific area or property just through photographs. Overcoming concerns about a native habitat looking too wild is also easier when we have local native habitats we can use as an educational resource and demonstration.
The local James City County-Williamsburg Master Gardener unit includes many Master Gardeners that are enthusiastic proponents of incorporating more native plants into traditional landscaping, and while reading the December 2023 issue of the unit’s newsletter I learned about a native plant demonstration garden and riparian buffer the unit had begun developing in partnership with James City County at Brickyard Landing. The Master Gardeners and County staff had worked with a local landscape architect to design the habitat and had just completed the first phase of planting, which included native trees and shrubs. The second planting phase, which would include grasses and perennials, was scheduled to begin in the coming spring.
Recognizing the value of this project and the educational opportunities it would provide, I quickly reached out to the lead Master Gardener for this project, Judy Kinshaw-Ellis, to learn more about the future plans for the project and to learn if there were any ways the District could provide additional support.
After talking with Judy, it was clear that the second phase of planting would be a great fit for a conservation landscaping application to the Virginia Conservation Assistance Program (VCAP). Conservation landscaping is a broad term applied to projects that include the use of native plants to address erosion and stormwater issues. The area included in the project at Brickyard Landing was previously covered by poorly performing and sparse turfgrass, so replacing this struggling vegetation with a native habitat aligned well with VCAP’s emphasis on erosion control. The VCAP cost-share rate for conservation landscaping is typically 80% of a project’s total cost, up to $7,000, but additional funding is currently available to publicly accessible projects that demonstrate conservation practices. As the Brickyard Landing project was installed in a public park, we were able to utilize the additional funding to offset the entire cost of the phase two planting which totaled to just over $9,000.
The Brickyard Landing native plant habitat is a valuable educational resource we can use to show community members what native plants can look like in our local environment and demonstrate the environmental benefits they provide. We are grateful to have been able to support the Master Gardeners and James City County in this effort, and will continue to look for more opportunities for collaboration through conservation.
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