The Top 10 Native Plant Species You Need in Your Garden

Pennsylvania has so many spectacular wildflowers and plants to offer!

 

The benefits of growing native plant species in your garden are seemingly endless! Sure, we love our exotic tropicals and imported plants, but our Pennsylvania natives have so much to offer. On top of being absolutely gorgeous, native plants are:

• A favorite among pollinators like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, who prefer the plants that they recognize
• Adapted to our environment, so they require very little maintenance
• Perennials or permanent landscape plants, so they’ll remain for many years to come

 

Here Are Our Favorite Native Species You Can Plant in Your Garden

With exceptional drought tolerance, showstopping color, and minimal effort required, you will love growing these Pennsylvania natives in your garden. 

 

Echinacea

You might recognize their name from the label of your cough medicine and lozenges; that’s because Echinacea is a powerful medicinal plant. If that wasn’t reason enough to love them, these daisy-like flowers have ultra-vibrant petals and big, bulbous centers that bees and butterflies can’t resist. 

Aronia

Also known as the Chokeberry, this deciduous fruiting shrub produces copious amounts of dark blueberries, bursting with vitamins and antioxidants. Toss some in a smoothie every morning as a powerful—and delicious—health supplement that prevents cancer and heart disease!

 

Viburnum 

There are two varieties of Viburnum native to Pennsylvania: Viburnum dentatum and Viburnum nudum. These deciduous shrubs produce fluffy clouds of flowers in summer, followed by colorful berries, and in autumn, their leaves turn to magnificent shades of orange, red, and purple. 

 

Lobelia Cardinalis

Also known as the Cardinal Flower, this native flower is a top favorite for hummingbirds! They’re attracted to that bright red color, and the tubular blooms are like little champagne flutes, perfect for dipping their beaks to sip that sweet floral nectar. 

 

Ferns

These leafy beauties need a bit more moisture than the typical native plant, but if you’ve got a nice shady spot in the garden, they’ll do just fine. You can harvest some fern fronds before they’re unfurled—these are called fiddleheads—and if you boil or steam them, they taste quite similar to asparagus. Ensure that your ferns are a food-safe variety and cook thoroughly before eating!

 

Magnolia Virginiana

The creamy, cup-shaped blooms of this stunning tree never fail to take our breath away! It grows to a modest height and width of 10–20 feet, so it’s a lovely ornamental tree for smaller yards. Its pale gray bark is perfect if you love neutral color palettes—it complements the Modern Farmhouse aesthetic beautifully!

 

Little Bluestem and Big Bluestem Grasses

Little Bluestem and Big Bluestem are both native plants of Pennsylvania! Their blue-green leaves bring gorgeous color contrast to the landscape, and their wispy blades of foliage dance in the breeze. They look fantastic in mixed container arrangements, adding height to create a balanced shape, but they’re also great as border plants along fences or filler plants among the flowers.

 

Solidago

Commonly known as Goldenrod, Solidago’s sunny yellow, feathery plumes of flowers brighten up the landscape with a golden glow. They bring that quaint, prairie meadow feel to the garden, especially when paired with purple blooms. Cut them for use in bouquet arrangements indoors!

 

Rudbeckia

Rudbeckia, or Black-Eyed Susan, are some of the easiest plants to grow, and we love how warm and cheerful they look! They’re vigorous growers with an impressive number of blooms—as these plants mature and spread, you can expect to see hundreds of these golden flowers in the garden. 

 

Clethra

These deciduous shrubs have a tidy, rounded shape and adorable plumes of flowers that look like fluffy kitten tails, usually in shades of cream or pink. Clethra blooms are incredibly fragrant, so we recommend planting this shrub close to your patio seating area so you can enjoy that sugary sweet scent.

 

Want to discover even more native plants of Pennsylvania? Visit Primex Garden Center and ask one of our greenhouse experts to show you all the incredible species that grow in the wild in our beautiful coastal state.