Our Top 10 Favorite Maryland Native Pollinator Perennials
At Lauren’s Garden Service Native Plant Nursery we are big fans of plants that support pollinators. Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other insect pollinators are integral to the fruit set and reproduction of plants. Planting a pollinator friendly garden is easy. It’s important to have plants that bloom from early spring to late fall in order to supply as much pollen throughout the seasons as possible.
Its easy to get a pollinator garden started. You can choose a small (or large) section of your lawn and stop mowing it, then plant some native pollinator wildflowers and trees in your new ‘pollinator’ meadow. You can simply add some pollinator plants into your existing landscape beds or you could create a native pollinator plant border along one of the edges of your property in order to support pollinators and local wildlife.
Here are some of our favorite pollinator plants that are locally native to the Maryland Piedmont!
10. Goldenrod– Solidago odora and rugosa. Goldenrods are great for fall color and as a pollen source later in the season. Our goldenrod was a nice host for a monarch chrysalis!
Fireworks goldenrod- a monarch hatched from this plant last fall!
We stopped mowing this field and this is what came up naturally! Vernonia, Goldenrod and milkweed among many others!
9. Firepink– Silene virginica is a beautiful perennial that attracts hummingbirds. It does will in a rocky soil and will tolerate clay soil, dry soil. This would be great in a meadow planting mixed with grasses and other wildflowers.
Fire Pink
8. Blue eyed Grass– Sisyrinchium angustifolium ‘Lucurne’ is such a pretty little grass that will tolerate some shade (though we find that the more sun the better) and deer. The flower opens and closes depending on sunlight. On cloudy days the buds stay closed and then they open up when the sun comes out. Its been such a delight watching ours bloom at the nursery.
Blue Eyed grass
7. Iris cristata– Dwarf crested iris is a great plant for sun or partial shade areas. It is deer resistant and will tolerate drought. We use these in the drier zones of rain gardens!
6. Raydon’s Favorite Aster– This gorgeous, upright aster will charm you with continuous blooms throughout the fall. It’s beautiful next to goldenrod, Solar Flare baptisia or black eyed susans.
5. Silver Gem Violets– Viola walteri ‘Silver Gem’ is a great deer resistant, shade tolerant plant that is one of the earliest sources of pollen for the early spring pollinators. We love its silvery foliage and love to pair it with Espresso geranium, a variety of heuchera, and ferns.
Deer resistant, shade, spring bloomer
4. Veronica– Veronicastrum virginicum is a great meadow plant that usually establishes in meadow mixes around year 7. Its a low maintenance perennial that pollinators love! It will tolerate wet soil and can be used in rain gardens.
Veronica- Native pollinator plant
3. New York Iron Weed– Vernonia novaboriensis-Vernonia is a great native pollinator plant that blooms in the late summer and fall. You can see it along highways with goldenrod. It’s slow to get started in the summer and doesn’t start getting too large until the warm of summer kicks in. This is one that clients often look for in early spring and think that it has died but usually it just hasn’t emerged yet! Vernonia gets to about 3-5ft tall and goes well in a wild setting with other larger perennials and grasses to establish a nice meadow garden. We’ve planted it in combination with milk weed, liatris, little bluestem, black eyed susan, goldenrod, cardinal flower and monarda. See the previous photo of goldenrod to see where it volunteered itself in our meadow the year we stopped mowing our turf grass!
New York Ironweed
2. Butterfly weed– Asclepias tuberosa likes drier soil so it can be planted on the sides or berms of a rain garden. It also thrives in a meadow planting mixed with grasses and tolerates dry soil, rocky soil, deer, drought and erosion. It should set seed pretty well in your garden beds that have well drained soil. Monarch caterpillars will live on this plant, and some people say that they have seen the caterpillars eating the leaves of this plant. I have always learned that the Monarch caterpillars ate only milkweed but I guess they eat this one too! What have they done in your garden? If people call us asking for native wildflowers or pollinator plants, our top 2 must haves are butterfly weed and milkweed. This plant has also been used medicinally for lung inflammation and has the common name pleurisy root.
1.Milkweed– Asclepias incarnata- What can we say- milkweed is our number one favorite pollinator because it supports Monarch butterflies which are currently endangered. Its easy to grow and likely to attract Monarch butterflies and caterpillars. Swamp milkweed will tolerate wet soil conditions, but your soil doesn’t need to be wet to grow it successfully. Milkweed used to be much more common alongside farmer’s fields, but has had a great reduction in recent years due to the use of Round Up. We have given this plant away by the hundreds at our spring sales in order to boost the local milkweed population! You can plant this in any garden bed but put it in a place where it has room to grow to 4ft tall!
Doug Tallamy is an entomologist who promotes the use of native plants in our residential landscapes in order to support local wildlife and pollinators. His entomology department has done some important research on the best plants to use to support pollinators and birds. Below are his lists of the best plants to plant. We’ve put an asterisks by the plants we currently have for sale at our nursery. We can also order the ones listed here if we don’t have them now.
Woody Plants
| Common Name | Plant Genus | Butterfly/moth species supported |
|---|---|---|
| *Oak | Quercus | 534 |
| *Black cherry | Prunus | 456 |
| *Willow | Salix | 455 |
| Birch | Betula | 413 |
| Poplar | Populus | 368 |
| Crabapple | Malus | 311 |
| *Blueberry | Vaccinium | 288 |
| *Maple | Acer | 285 |
| Elm | Ulmus | 213 |
| Pine | Pinus | 203 |
| Hickory | Carya | 200 |
| Hawthorn | Crataegus | 159 |
| Spruce | Picea | 156 |
| Alder | Alnus | 156 |
| Basswood | Tilia | 150 |
| Ash | Fraxinus | 150 |
| Rose | Rosa | 139 |
| Filbert | Corylus | 131 |
| Walnut | Juglans | 130 |
| Beech | Fagus | 126 |
| Chestnut | Castanea | 125 |
Herbaceous Plants
| Common Name | Plant Genus | Butterfly/moth species supported |
|---|---|---|
| *Goldenrod | Solidago | 115 |
| *Asters | Aster | 112 |
| *Sunflower | Helianthus | 73 |
| *Joe pye, Boneset | Eupatorium | 42 |
| Morning glory | Ipomoea | 39 |
| *Sedges | Carex | 36 |
| *Honeysuckle | Lonicera | 36 |
| Lupine | Lupinus | 33 |
| *Violets | Viola | 29 |
| *Geraniums | Geranium | 23 |
| *Black-eyed susan | Rudbeckia | 17 |
| *Iris | Iris | 17 |
| Evening primrose | Oenothera | 16 |
| *Milkweed | Asclepias | 12 |
| Verbena | Verbena | 11 |
| Beardtongue | Penstemon | 8 |
| *Phlox | Phlox | 8 |
| Bee balm | Monarda | 7 |
| *Veronica | Veronica | 6 |
| *Little bluestem | Schizachyrium | 6 |
| *Cardinal flower | Lobelia | 4 |
Which ones are good for shade
Gail, take a look at our post about Native Shade Pollinators if you haven’t already: https://www.laurensgardenservice.com/top-8-native-shade-pollinator-plants/
Hi, I’m pulling four large Euonymus bushes because they are disease-prone and non-native. Need to replace with native bushes. Main purpose: privacy. Located back of home where there’s shade most of the day and the sun only hits it later in the afternoon. Must be resistant to fungal diseases and to deer. Pollinator capacity would be most welcome. Columbia, MD. Zone 6a. Thanks
Native shrubs that are dense, deer resistant, pollinator friendly, and will tolerate a lot of shade can be tricky! We love Clethra alnifolia (summersweet) for shade and late-season pollinator value but it is susceptible to being browsed by deer. Deer tend to avoid Itea virginica (sweetspire) but, while it will grow in part shade, it’s best bloom is in full sun. Lindera benzoin (spicebush) and Calycanthus floridus (Carolina allspice) are both deer tolerant but may have too open a habit in shade to provide the privacy you want. Ilex glabra will tolerate part shade, but may struggle in full shade. This may be a case of not having a perfect native solution and needing to choose based on which assets are most important to you! I’ve linked to a few options here but you can also the search tool on our online native plant shop to find plants for specific conditions.
I hope it’s okay to join the conversation Laura, I love your page.
Are you sure you’re in zone 6a Maria? Most of MD is now in 7a territory to my knowledge especially the closer you get to DC. Are you more out west? I wonder if you’re in a cold pocket.
You could try a hedgerow of the shrubs Laura suggested, since apart they may not fulfill every need but if planted together they might make up for each other’s drawbacks. Hedgerows also help support wildlife and shelter.
If you’re open to native hybrids and or nativars you could use try Pieris x ‘Brouwer’s Beauty’ which is a cross between japanese pieris and our rare native pieris floribunda. Pieris tend to appreciate some shade, but also like some sun so it may like your conditions. It can lend additional evergreen foliage and flowers for spring pollinators. I’ve never seen pieris damaged by deer the way they browse mountain laurel.
Here in Baltimore Co while not native to MD but native to the US I’ve successfully grown the southern native illiciums, Illicium floridanum and illicium parviflorum (chartreuse to gold colored ‘Florida Sunshine’) which can handle deep shade and will grow into larger evergreen shrubs to small trees. Due to particular compounds in their leaves (which scent them like anise/camphor in high humidity and when broken) they are toxic so deer won’t eat them. In colder winter temps their evergreen leaves do “collapse” and look a bit scary/dead in the morning but later in the day with warmer temps seem to relax and go back to normal. If you’re not in a truly cold pocket these could be a good choice to experiment with but there are reports of hardiness down to 6a. They do have flowers, similar to calycanthus but smaller and more shaggy in either maroon or white.
Hello! I know I’m a little late to the convo, but I just came across this article. I have a massive shale bank that I would love to cover in flowers. The problem is, it is shale, clay, half of it is in direct sun & is steep (which hasn’t grown anything in years, not even weeds!) and the other half isn’t as steep & gets partial sun depending on time of day – and does much better with growth. That half I can figure out from reading this article which plants I can use. So I’m after info/ideas on what to do with the crappy half of the shale bank. I live in western MD in the mountains, up in the woods with the wildlife, so deer resistant is nice, but I also don’t mind them coming for a visit! Thank you!
Morgan – sorry for the delay in response. For a steep shale bank maybe Parthenocissus quinquefolia – Virginia creeper? https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=paqu2
I live in a very large retirement community in Maryland. I m looking to submit a proposal to our condominium community planning advisory committee to move away from so many annual plantings to a naturalized pollinating landscape. There is more than ample green space in the form of a golf course and it’s borders and woodlands. I rarely hear birds and see no bees or butterflies. Your article and the comments are very insightful. So where do I go from here.
I also suspect that given the amount and continuity of open space and woodlands in many of the adjacent communities in Montgomery a collaborative effort among communities, if encouraged by the County, as a reinvestment in their landscape there could be a substantial change in the quality and value of our built environment.
Jack – sorry for the delay in response! I’m not sure what stage you are currently at now, but if you’re still looking for help sending us an email with what you’re looking for is a great start!
In the Raydon’s Favorite Aster photo, what is the tall, dark purple-leaf plant? There are three in a cluster.