Thank you to everyone who attended the first White House Natives open house! We really enjoyed the opportunity to show guests the nursery, discuss various landscape projects and share food, fellowship and information.
Awareness of the importance of planting native trees and shrubs is increasing and White House Natives aims to meet the demand. Not only are natives more hardy, look great in the landscape and provide food and habitat for wildlife, they require less water, minimal fertilizers and pesticides, demand less maintenance and tend to be long-lived and provide four-season interest.
Joe Lehnen from the Virginia Department of Forestry defined natives in his address as ‘a plant that has been in the area prior to the settlement of white Europeans on the North American continent’.
“Natives are adapted to the area’s climate and soil and … they co-evolved with insects in the area,” says Mr. Lehnen.
He also touched on local economics of incorporating natives into the landscape: “When native plants and leaves and trees are eaten along streams and debris falls into the stream, [it is] very important for the macroinvertebrates in the streams that feed the fish that attract the people who fish the fish that stay in the hotels that buy the food who buy the licenses, etc.”
Native species are well adapted to a variety of habitats and can grow in many types of regions. Mr. Lehnen mentioned the versatility of red maple and black gum which can live on dry or wet sites and grow at different elevations.
“Finally, native plants give people a sense of place and its part of the heritage and people are really interested in their heritage, the heritage of the area and the natural history of the area,” noted Mr. Lehnen.
“Joe just named the reasons we got into this business,” said Scott Plein, owner of the White House Farm and partner with Matt Deivert in White House Natives. “For years I ‘ve been asking landscape architects to put some native plants in and they say there’s no place to get them — White House Natives has landscape-quality plants – so now there is a place to get them.”
We are beginning to dig trees this weekend to fill our fall tree and shrub orders. We can still accommodate additional sales but please contact us as soon as possible so we can add your selections to our schedule.