Joy Kibet

NATURAL/NATIVE LANDSCAPING Natural landscaping is the use of plants which naturally grew in that particular place without being introduced from other places by any means. These types of landscapes have more advantages than the landscapes made up of plants from different geographical areas. First natural landscapes have low maintenance. This is because such plants are adapted to the environmental conditions in which they are in and they established easily hence needs less care like watering, fertilizer application, mowing will not be regular for the case of lawn and pesticide application since most of the plants are resistant to pest and diseases. Secondly these types of landscapes conserve the biodiversity. Biodiversity include animals living in the natural environment. The biodiversity is lost when the natural plants are removed so that new ones are planted and since they are adapted to their natural environment, they will migrate to other places looking for their habitat and others may die due to change in the environment and also they may lose their food. Through this process useful animals like butterflies and bees are lost. Such animals are very important in an ecosystem and when they are lost some of their roles like pollination incase of butterflies is lost. Thirdly, this type of landscaping prevents the introduction of invasive plants. These are plants which are brought from another place and they grow in the place they have been introduced in large numbers until they dominate the whole area. The problem of invasive plants will not be experienced where there is native landscaping as fewer plants will be introduce in the area and hence will not invade into the natural environment. Combination in landscapes enhances a beautiful landscape and this depends on the best combination. Different plant species are naïve to different geographical locations and hence the geographical area should be taken into consideration while choosing the kind of plants to be planted. For example some of the south florida native plants used to enhance combination include: Silver buttonwood used at the hedges, Paurotism palm and Clusea rosea used as a specimen plant commonly used at focal point purple passion vine used in arbors and trellis and Sunshine mimosa used as a ground cover. While landscaping, one should take into consideration the climate of that particular area so as to choose the best plants for that particular location. World climate regions include Polar, Temperate, Arid, Tropical, Mediterranean and Tundra. These climatic regions should be taken into consideration when selecting the plant for landscaping. For example tropical savanna climate means that the country experience winter and summer seasons. Therefore while landscaping in the country, one should take a mix of combinations to ensure that during one season or the other season the landscape will still be colorful. Use of both perennial and annual drought tolerant and cool season native plants is a wise move. This ensures that during all seasons the landscape will still enhance an aesthetic look. Tropical evergreen plants like Livistona, Phoenix, Sabal, Thrinax, Brahea, Coccothrinax, and Washingtonia Palm are suitable to be used in such an area. Some of the challenges on using native plants for landscaping are that users/owners believe that native plants are not so attractive as exotic plants, this may be because these native plants are not taken good care of because the owners think that since they are natural plants they can grow on their own but this is not true. If native plants are taken good care of and propagated to get the best, more attractive ones can be obtained and this will enable the use of natural plants. The other reason why some users/owners may not use native plants is that they don’t know which plants are native and which are exotic. This then push the urge to find out native plants for a particular area so that it will make it easy to be used. It is therefore important to use native plants for landscaping making our environment and surrounding aesthetically pleasing and keeping the habitat and native species. By practicing native landscaping, we will be in a position to interact with our environment hence conserving it which is the best option to take for future generations.