Our Native Plant Garden

September 21, 2021 Brian Monsell

Takoma Park Presbyterian Church’s Native Plant Garden

Welcome to Takoma Park Presbyterian Church’s native plant garden!

From spring through fall, you will find many species of wild trees, shrubs, flowers, and ferns growing here. And in the winter, when green is gone from the garden and all looks brown and bare, there is plenty of life here – many insect grubs are hibernating in dry plant stalks, under tree bark, and in the leaf litter on the ground. We grow native plants to support the web of life that surrounds and supports us, including mammals, birds, insects, and the plants themselves.

Our garden is diverse with many species, including a couple of important keystone species (PDF), like oaks, wild cherry, asters, and goldenrod. These plants are called “keystones” because their leaves provide food for a larger number of insect species than other plants. In the U.S., for example, oaks - like the red and white oak trees in our garden - support 897 caterpillar species! Other keystone species in our garden include Wild Cherry, Asters, and Goldenrod. The caterpillars depend on these keystone plants for food, and small wild birds depend on the caterpillars as a soft and nutritious food source for their hungry babies. In turn, bigger animals like hawks depend on the birds for food. And we depend on butterflies, bees, and other insects to pollinate the plants we eat!

See this content in the original post

September 2021

When you click on one of the links below, you will need to scroll past the plant data base search to get to the plant information.

See this content in the original post