Law's garden embraces native plants

A few years ago, Laura Law decided she was tired of looking at — and cutting — the lawn at her home. But instead of putting in a “traditional” landscape of ornamental flowers and shrubs, she opted for native plants wherever possible.

With a lot of work and plenty of tender loving care, Law’s gardens flourished with native plants and bushes that bloom from early spring into October.

Native plants offer a host of benefits, Law notes. Research has shown they increase biodiversity in a landscape. Native plants attract native bugs, it turns out. And native bugs in turn attract birds. Law said since she tore out large sections of her lawn and put in native plant species, the number of birds in her yard has increased significantly.

“We need to keep biodiversity alive by bringing native plants into our landscapes,” Law said during a presentation and a tour of her property in Columbia Falls.

While Montana is blessed with native meadows and fields in places like Glacier National Park and the Flathead National Forest, native species also thrive in simple backyard plots in Columbia Falls.

Law’s gardens include fireweed, wild buckwheat, snowberry and spirea bushes, wild rose and a host of other flowering plants. The native plants actually do better in a cultivated setting because they’re not competing with other plants like they would in a natural meadow, she noted.

Law mulches her gardens with bark, which helps hold moisture in the soil and lessens compaction. A member of the Flathead Chapter of the Native Plant Society, Law gets her stock from local and regional nurseries that specialize in native species. Collecting species from public lands is illegal, she noted.

About 30 people last week toured her gardens.

“My goal is that you’ll all plant something native in your yard,” she said.

Not all of her yard is native species. She has a big Norway maple that she can’t bear to cut down. It’s too nice of a shade tree, she said.

To learn more about growing a native plant garden and for a list of native plant nurseries, visit online at www.mtnativeplants.org/Home.