Morton Native Plant Garden
Explore Native Plants
Landscaping with native plants is key to sustainable horticulture. The Morton Native Plant Garden at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden highlights some of our favorite drought-tolerant plants native to Central Virginia and allows visitors to see what they might look like when worked into a landscape. View the Native Plant Garden from inside the Lora Robins Library.
The Native Plant Garden serves as a teaching landscape so that others can see the beauty of an all-native garden. A few of the specimens you’ll see are sourwood trees (Oxydendrum arboreum) featuring seed-heads, looking like tassels or pom-poms at the top of the tree, the American hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), which in spring, features blooms that look like the hops you use for beer-making, and spicebush (Lindera benzoin) filled with spicebush swallowtail butterfly caterpillars.
Other highlights include common ninebark; Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Jefam’ Amber Jubilee®, and arrowwood viburnum, (Viburnum dentatum) ‘Christom’ Blue Muffin®. In summer look for a nice selection of coreopsis including threadleaf coreopsis; Coreopsis verticillata ‘Broad Street’ Cruizin™, large-flowered Tickseed; Coreopsis grandiflora ‘Domino’, Coreopsis ‘Zagreb’ and Coreopsis auriculata ‘Nana.’
Read more about the Morton Native Plant Garden and see a full plant list.
Sea Holly
Eryngium aquaticum is a Virginia native that love thrives in wet soil. If you have a swampy part of your garden or yard, consider planting this beauty for texture and its unusual color.
The bright red fruit of the America Wahoo
American wahoo, hearts-a-bustin’, strawberry bush. These are all common names for Euonymus americanus. And unlike its counterparts in the wild of Virginia, this one won’t get eaten by deer before you have a chance to see it.
Native Beautyberry
White berried native beautyberry fruit Callicarpa americana var. Lactea
Spotted Bee Balm
Pollinators love this native bee balm, Monarda punctata.
Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar
Papilio troilus or the spicebush swallowtail butterfly caterpillars in spring.
Witherod viburnum 'Brandywine' in the Morton Native Plant Garden
Threadleaf Coreposis
This beautiful native with bright yellow blossoms thrives in poor soil and is heat and drought tolerant. Coreopsis verticillata ‘Zagreb’ would be an excellent addition to your garden if you are looking for a no-maintenance plant with blooms.