Plants for Soft Landings
“Soft landings are diverse native plantings under keystone trees (or any other regionally appropriate native tree). These plantings provide critical shelter and habitat for one or more life cycle stages of moths, butterflies, and beneficial insects.
Keystone plants are native plants that support a significant number of caterpillars (butterfly and moth larvae). Planting keystone plants helps build complex food webs by forming the essential foundation – native plants and insects – that provide food for other organisms, directly and indirectly.
After feeding on native tree foliage, many moth and butterfly caterpillars spend their next life cycle stage (pupae) in the leaf litter or in the soil below the tree. Regularly mowed turf grass under trees lacks the necessary habitat for these important insects to complete their life cycles. Frequent mowing also leads to compacted soil.
Planting intentional soft landings under keystone trees (or any regionally appropriate native tree) builds healthy soil, provides food for songbirds and pollinators, sequesters more carbon than turf grass, and reduces time spent mowing.”
Information provided by Heather Holm
The following native plant list includes plants that thrive in part shade under native trees.
NOTE: Not all plants listed are available at all times.
Aquilegia canadensis Wild Columbine
Asarum canadensis Wild Ginger
Mertemsia virginica Virginia Bluebells
Phlox divacarta Wild Blue Phlox
Podophyllium peltatum May Apple
Polemonium reptans Jacob’s Ladder
Polygonatum biflorum Solomon’s Seal
Sanguinana canadensis Bloodroot
Adiantum pedatum Maidenhair Fern
Anthyrium filix-femina Lady Fern
Dryopteris ludoviciana Southern Wood Fern
Osmunda regalis Royal Fern
Osmunda cinnamomea Cinnamon Fern
Polystichum acrostichoides Christmas Fern