When Todd Minners and his wife, Sandy, moved into their newly constructed Bellevue Forest home in 2013, the yard featured a mix of grass, nonnative privets, boxwoods and other standard builder plantings. Over the next few years, they added a back patio, a retaining wall and planter boxes—and more plants that weren’t native to this region.
“I bought whatever the big box stores sold, with no attention,” Minners says in retrospect.
His landscaping philosophy changed dramatically once he retired and trained to become an Arlington Regional Master Naturalist in 2018. That’s when he realized how little value those prior horticultural choices were contributing to the local ecosystem.
Luckily, their builder had left a few oaks—a “keystone species” that produces food for small insects, which, in turn, feed other creatures up the food chain, like dragonflies and birds. But there weren’t many native plants and shrubs of the sort that serve as gestational hosts and food sources for butterflies, moths and other pollinators.
Minners ordered a free tree (a native river birch) from EcoAction Arlington, a local nonprofit that offers complimentary saplings seasonally. He ripped out the invasive privet and nandina bushes and began replacing them with more productive and attractive native plants, including winterberry, viburnum and Virginia sweetspire. Curb appeal was still a priority, he says, but so was environmental stewardship.
To steer his habitat remediation efforts, Minners created two spreadsheets. One records the natives he’s already planted, with notes about each plant’s benefits to area wildlife. The second document is more aspirational, cataloging the native varietals he’d like to introduce down the road. “It was my own way to learn about the plants and to sort out what would work well in the yard,” he explains.
To say that Minners had a life-or-death situation on his hands is not an overstatement. Rapid development over the past 50 years has contributed to the destruction of natural habitats worldwide, while warming temperatures, widespread pesticide use and pollution have further decimated plant and animal populations. Many scientists refer the present era as “the sixth extinction.”
Here in Virginia, the birds, butterflies and bees are disappearing from our backyards, in part because of what we choose to grow. Ornamental, “exotic” and hybrid plant cultivars prized for their good looks have literally supplanted many of the native flowers and shrubs some animal and insect species need to survive.
We may think of our national, state and local parks as safe havens for biodiversity, but that isn’t always true. Even the public parks in this area—the George Washington Memorial Parkway, overseen by the National Park Service, is one example—are overrun by invasive plants such as English ivy, multiflora rose and porcelain berry that crowd out and ultimately starve indigenous flora and fauna.
The good news is that invasive plants are a problem that can be solved.
Bluemont resident Julie Hanson Swanson always admired the demonstration gardens planted and maintained by the Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia (MGNV) in Bon Air Park, near her house. In 2021, while completing her own master gardener training, she volunteered her yard for an MGNV practice pruning session. She still remembers her surprise when the extension agent leading the tutorial stopped by for a pre-visit and “pointed out all the invasive shrubs and plants” in her beds, including nandina, rose of Sharon, burning bush, leatherleaf mahonia and nonnative honeysuckle.
She shifted her priorities and set a new goal: “To create a habitat for insects and other wildlife.”
There were some aesthetic considerations. Swanson wanted a blooming garden of low-lying perennials (no taller than 2 feet) so as not to overwhelm her small Cape Cod home. After consulting with other master gardeners and MGNV’s wide library, she chose native chokeberries, sweetspire, viburnum, winterberry and fothergilla for her foundation plantings. Away went her lawn in favor of native grasses (she adores purple love grass) and Virginia groundcovers such as golden ragwort, green and gold, and moss phlox.
She was rewarded with an almost immediate flurry of new visitors outside her window. “I was amazed at all the additional insects coming to my yard. I was so excited when I saw the leaf bites and knew it was a leaf cutter bee.” Come fall, she says, her goldenrod was “just so busy with bees and wasps and skippers.”
Turns out, public and protected lands aren’t the only battlegrounds for our planet’s survival. What grows on private property matters, too, notes Penrose resident Elaine Mills, a Virginia Extension master gardener and former MGNV education outreach coordinator whose public talks on native landscaping include one that’s garnered more than 30,000 views on YouTube.
Human conventions like property lines mean nothing to local wildlife. But how we choose to green and beautify our private domains certainly does.
“The choices you make can have a direct impact on the success of our ecosystems and all the animals in them,” Mills stresses, “from the smallest of the pollinators to the various birds and mammals.”
Many well-meaning gardeners are “not aware that some of the very popular plants in the horticulture trade [are], in fact, invasive,” she says. “The more I learned about native plants, the more I saw how beautiful they were.”
Doug Tallamy, an entomologist at the University of Delaware and author of the books Bringing Nature Home and Nature’s Best Hope, encourages private homeowners to set a long-term goal of dedicating 70% of their yard space to native plants. He’s inspired a national movement called Homegrown National Park.
Donaldson Run neighbors Cathy Hope, Maureen Testoni and Cathy Biersack, whose homes collectively back up to Zachary Taylor Park, are part of that movement. All have replanted sections of their yards with native plants to create a wildlife corridor for local fauna. It’s a small but intentional effort to be part of a larger solution.
Stephanie Johnson, owner of Green Steeze, a conservation landscaping business based in Gainesville, helps area homeowners work toward that shared goal. She says her observations are sometimes an eye opener for clients. People often don’t see how their aesthetic choices affect and are affected by the ecology next door.
“They want the biggest, boldest flowers,” Johnson explains, “but they don’t really understand why there are flowers, why the flowers have this color, and why they bloom during this period of time.” For millions of years flowers, their pollinators and any fauna that lay eggs on those plants have evolved together. Often the timing of a plant’s blooming (not to mention the flower’s color and structure) coincides with a pollinator’s mating or gestational season, or migratory pattern. They’ve evolved to support one another’s life cycles.
It’s a mind shift to start viewing your own land as “something that’s living and important,” Johnson says.
In 2024, Stacy and Gordon Brookes hired Johnson to give their Vienna yard “a less curated look.” They wanted the landscaping to appear more natural—plus, they had some concerns about drainage. Johnson removed invasive honeysuckle and some sparse, nonnative azaleas, and encouraged the couple to remove ivy that was smothering several large trees, along with a stubborn patch of pachysandra.
Introducing native saplings among the established trees, she counseled, would ensure a “consistent legacy tree canopy” in the decades ahead, even as the older trees died off—an approach known as succession planting.
“I’m excited to see the space return to nature,” Gordon says. “When we first moved in, it was just covered with terrible grass and ivy. It wasn’t a great space for anything.”
Johnson’s advice also centered on a “right plant, right place” design philosophy. “I’m not a plant plopper,” she says. “I’m really focused on what belongs in this particular habitat.”
A habitat, mind you, could be a domain as small as the shady corner of a quarter-acre yard. The key is to choose native plants that might naturally grow in that setting, given the water conditions, sun exposure and soil quality. Is the soil rich or poor, or previously disturbed by development? “That tells me what’s going to thrive here and what will do the most good,” Johnson explains.
For the Brookeses, she recommended the “versatile and gorgeous” perennial golden alexander, in part because it’s a host plant for the black swallowtail butterfly and other beneficial insects, plus it can thrive in previously disturbed soil. Other improvements on their lot included replacing the traditional grass with Pennsylvania sedge and clover seeds to create a different kind of “lawn” with deeper roots to help address their drainage issues while also promoting greater biodiversity. As a bonus, the native sedge and clover form a groundcover that requires no herbicides or watering to maintain it.
“She put in these beautiful ferns that remind me of camping, and they stay green through the winter,” Stacy says. “These just remind me of being out in a forest. I want it to feel really magical when we have a place to sit out there.”
They’re adding a fire pit soon.
Invasive vs. Native Plants
What makes a plant invasive? To be included on the Virginia Department of Conservation & Recreation’s 2024 list of invasives, “there must be demonstrable evidence that a species poses a threat to Virginia’s forests, native grasslands, wetlands, or waterways.” Invasive plant species do environmental harm by outcompeting native plants for limited resources, including the land and pollinators they rely on to thrive.
Take butterfly bush, which was recently added to Virginia’s invasives list. It often reseeds beyond where it’s planted and forms thickets in the wild that crowd out native plants. Yes, you may see butterflies and moths nectaring on its blossoms, but that means those insects are neglecting the native plants that depend on them for pollination.
Certain insects, in turn, may be co-dependent on native plants for their existence. Species such as the monarch butterfly, zebra swallowtail and some bees have co-evolved over time to use the leaves and stems of a particular plant to lay eggs or provide food for larvae or caterpillars. If milkweed, pawpaw trees and the spring beauty ephemeral cease to exist, so do those insect species.
A butterfly bush takes up valuable real estate that might otherwise be devoted to plants that support the immediate ecosystem and help it to flourish. Other invasive plants, such as widespread nandina, may actively harm local wildlife. Studies suggest that nandina berries may be toxic to cedar waxwing birds that would otherwise consume the healthful berries of native plants.
Plant This, Not That
If the prospect of overhauling your entire yard to support local biodiversity feels daunting (and expensive), fret not. There’s no need to do it all at once. Experts like Arlington master gardener Elaine Mills advise starting slowly and swapping out a few plants at a time. “The substitution of any native plants for invasives is a step in the right direction,” Mills says, and the reality is, most yards are a mix. The plants in the “avoid” column below are ones listed as invasive by the state of Virginia and/or Arlington County.
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The Northern Virginia Bird Alliance wildlife sanctuary program offers home visits “to promote citizen participation in conserving and restoring local natural habitat and biodiversity.” After observing your property, a wildlife ambassador will suggest ways make it more wildlife friendly, not only for birds, but also box turtles, salamanders, bees, moths and butterflies—species that aren’t currently listed as endangered, but “will be if they keep losing habitat,” says local program coordinator Alda Krinsman. The ambassador assigned to visit your home (an Arlington Regional Master Naturalist or a Master Gardener of Northern Virginia) will explain how even the limited real estate of a small yard can support the larger ecosystem. If the ambassador notices anything invasive that is likely to spread quickly, particularly by birds eating and spreading its seeds, that plant will be first on the recommended list for removal. “As a good citizen, you don’t want that in your park,” Krinsman says. Request a free visit at nvbirdalliance.org/wildlife-sanctuary-program.
More Helpful Resources
The native plants highlighted in this article are only a sampling of flora that thrive in local gardens and green spaces. Consult these excellent sources for more options and growing tips.
Earth Sangha, based in Springfield, is one of the area’s oldest native plant nurseries.
Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia, has developed a series of “Tried and True Plant Selections for the Mid-Atlantic” sheets with input from master gardeners and other experts in Arlington County and the City of Alexandria. The website also features 24 short videos on invasive plants and their identifying characteristics, created by MGNV members Elaine Mills and Alyssa Ford Morel.
Plant NOVA Natives offers native plant guidebooks with plants organized into a wide spectrum of categories, including options that are deer resistant, shade-loving or likely to attract hummingbirds.
Not sure which zone you’re in? Simply type your ZIP code into the National Wildlife Federation’s Native Plant Finder widget for a catalog of native flowers, grasses, trees and shrubs, ranked by the number of butterfly and moth species that use them as host plants for their caterpillars.
Amy Brecount White, an Arlington Regional Master Naturalist, is working toward having 70% native plants in her yard. She is still in the process of removing some pesky ivy and pachysandra.