Another advantage of local native plants is their longevity. In conjunction with the strategies they have developed for tolerating drought, many local native plants have a very long life span, Sharing a garden with the same plants over the years gives a sense of substantiality to the garden as a whole and allows one to follow the growth of a plant community over natural cycles that are longer than the yearly procession of the seasons.
A downside of the longevity of many native plants is that a number of them do not grow quickly. Design-wise this can be mitigated by planting faster growing plants to occupy space that will later be taken by the more substantial slower growers. |
