By Ann Lapides
Keystone plants are plants that play an outsized role in supporting wildlife. Many are host plants for caterpillars, food sources for pollinators, shelter for birds, or seed and berry producers for wildlife. When you add keystone plants to your landscape, you are not just planting a garden. You are creating a living habitat. These plants can help turn an ordinary yard into a place filled with movement, color, birdsong, butterflies, and seasonal beauty.
Many of these Keystone Plants are the result of research by entomologist Dr. Doug Tallamy and his team at the University of Delaware. They have identified that 14% of native plants (the keystones) support 90% of butterfly and moth lepidoptera species. The research found that 15% to 60% of North American native bee species feed only on pollen from 40% of native plants. The National Wildlife Federation notes that 96% of our birds rely on insects supported by Keystone Plants. Grow Native an education program of the Missouri Prairie Foundation, has identified native plants that provide food sources for pollinators throughout the growing season.
Plants like native oaks, asters, goldenrods, coneflowers, milkweed, bee balm, serviceberry, spicebush, and native grasses all add ecological value while bringing beauty to the garden.
A Missouri Keystone Plant garden can be colorful, refined, natural, tidy, wild, formal, or casual. The goal is not to give up beauty. The goal is to choose beauty that gives back. Flowers feed pollinators. Leaves feed caterpillars. Seeds feed birds. Stems shelter insects. Roots support soil life. Every layer matters. When you plant keystone plants, you help create a garden that is beautiful to people and essential to wildlife.
Learn more about Missouri Keystone Plants at Sugar Creek Gardens plant nursery located in Kirkwood, or visit www.sugarcreekgardens.com/missouri-keystone-plants
Sugar Creek Gardens
1011 N Woodlawn
Kirkwood MO 63122
314-965-3070
sugarcreekgardens.com