Native Plants

Native Plants

• Native Plants are the historic members of a local ecosystem. They co-evolved with the birds, mammals, insects, spiders, reptiles, and amphibians of that region.

• Essential to a given ecosystem, they provide food, shelter, and nesting places for the local wildlife.
• Trees, shrubs, and groundcovers native to our Eastern Deciduous Forest ecoregion have been planted in OMW. Our local birds, insects, and other terrestrial life depend on the seeds, nuts, berries, nectar, pollen, and foliage of these local native plants.
• As of Spring 2025, ESC volunteers have planted the following:
  • Canopy trees
    • Prunus serotina, black cherry
    • Quercus alba, white oak
  • Understory trees
    • Amelanchier canadensis, serviceberry
    • Carpinus Americana, hornbeam
    • Cornus florida, flowering dogwood
    • Ilex opaca, American holly
    • Sassafras albium, sassafras
  • Shrubs
    • Aesculus parviflora, bottlebush buckeye
    • Calycanthus floridus, Carolina allspice
    • Ilex verticillata, winterberry holly
    • Lindera benzoin, spicebush
    • Viburnum acerfolium, mapleleaf viburnum
    • V. dentatum, black haw viburnum
  • Groundcovers
    • Carex amphibola, creek sedge
    • Heuchera americana, alumroot
    • Packera aurea, golden ragwort
    • Polystichum acrostichoides, Christmas fern
    • Stylophorum diphyllum, wood poppy
    • Tiarella cordifolia, foamflower
    • Violaceae species

For more information on each species use the Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder, click here.

• Two native trees were previously growing in this area: Cercis canadensis (eastern redbud) and Chionanthus virginicus (fringe tree). They and the non-native flowering cherries and magnolia were planted in 2002.
• Adapted to our local soil and climate, the native plants don’t require fertilizer, chemicals, or extra water once established.
• The layers of native vegetation including canopy and understory trees, shrubs, groundcovers, and fungi create conditions for a thriving ecosystem.
  • Invasive plants, which aggressively outcompete native plants and create a degraded habitat, have been eliminated from OMW. These plants are not indigenous to our local ecosystem and are without the pests, herbivores, and diseases that kept them in check in their original ecosystems. Our native deer, insects, and other herbivores prefer to eat native plants rather than non-natives. Invasives at Foulkeways include bush honeysuckle, Japanese honeysuckle, English ivy, Chinese privet, burning bush, common buckthorn, multiflora rose, lesser celandine, oriental bittersweet, Japanese stiltgrass, and others. Volunteers keep the invasives from growing in OMW.
  • For more information about invasive plants in Pennsylvania click here: https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dcnr/conservation/wild-plants/invasive-plants.html