Bring Long-Lasting Color to Your Landscape With These Plantings in Wappinger Falls and Hopewell Junction, NY Areas
Spring has arrived and it’s the perfect time to get started in bringing new plants to your plant beds and overall landscape. Whenever planning a softscape, always consider using native plants which will yield the most beauty with the least amount of work (all of the plants described below are native to New York). These gorgeous specimens have the ability to breathe new life into your landscape with color and fragrance. Here’s how to bring long-lasting color to your landscape with these plantings in Wappinger Falls and Hopewell Junction, NY areas.
Related: 6 Landscaping Tips to Keep in Mind This Spring in Lagrangeville and Poughquag, NY
Native Flowers
Wild Columbine: This beautiful flower has bright red and yellow flowers that bloom in the spring and last until the winter starts to bear down. They’re part of the Buttercup family, which has many species of Columbine in North America. The plant grows to 18 inches in sunny and dry areas and is wonderful for attracting hummingbirds along their migration routes.
Heart-Leaved Aster: Very common in the city parks of the Northeastern United States, this Aster shows its beautiful powder blue bloom in the late summer. The plant grows up to 4 feet tall in shady spots of your garden and does well in pots. The bright color has been known to attract butterflies.
Wild Geranium: Blooming pink and purple in the Spring before summer heat bears down, this member of the Geranium family provides excellent ground cover for other plants but it spreads rather slowly so it’s best to buy some sprouted geraniums from your local nursery. This flower also attracts butterflies and grows up to 22 inches in shady areas in your garden.
Native Shrubs
Bearberry: A wonderful native member of the Heath family of Evergreens, the Bearberry flowers white in the late spring and produces its namesake berries from late summer into winter. While the fleshy and bright red fruits are edible, they are tasteless. This shrub is happiest in sunny and dry areas of your landscape.
Flowering Dogwood: A popular choice in landscape design for its showy white and (sometimes) pink flowers, grows up to 40 feet tall in the wild. It dramatically changes color in the fall and produces a red fleshy fruit as the weather gets cold, which attracts migratory birds. The flowers show up in the spring and the bark grows in visual texture with age.
Native Flowers
Purple Lovegrass: Fairly plain while providing great visual texture year round, the plant produces fantastically showy bright purple flowers in late summer. This grass grows to 2 feet and loves sunny and dry areas of your landscape.
Sideoats Grama: Green for the growing season, this grass goes to a fabulous orange in the fall. The seed heads make wonderful visual texture and attract many varieties of songbirds. This grass grows 2.5 feet tall and is happiest in moist soil.
Native Ferns
Maidenhair Fern: Although ferns typically prefer damp soil with plenty of shade, the delicate Maidenhair Fern spreads slowly and is drought-tolerant once well-established. It has incredible visual texture enhanced by some black wiry stems and light airy leaflets.
Hay-Scented Fern: The fronds of this fern grow up to 32 inches wide, so it’ll eventually become a large part of your landscape. The scent during spring and early summer is what makes this fern attractive, though its presence is stunning and beautiful.
Related: 2 Tips for Landscaping With Summer Plantings in Mind in Pleasant Valley NY