Janice's Native Plant Adventure
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
We love our lawn and landscaping, but maintaining them is expensive. After learning about the ecological benefits of native plants, we’ve been gradually filling our yard with them. Already, we’ve seen more birds, bees and butterflies and it’s a lot easier to maintain.
Looking to learn more about landscaping with native plants, we turned to our good friend (and faithful SMwA reader) Janice. She recently took the plunge, and had some interesting things to share about her experience, as well as some beautiful photos of her new yard. I caught up with her last week:
Hi Janice! Tell us a bit about yourself.
Hi there! I live in Connecticut with my husband and 2 daughters. My husband and I met at Carnegie Mellon University where we were teammates on a buggy racing team. Between work, kids, and involvement in our kids’ schools, I don't have much time to myself. But I make time to walk every day with our dog, and I love arts and crafts, including hand-making ~200 holiday cards each year.
How did you find out about SMwA?
From your wife! She’s one of my favorite coworkers.
Could you tell us about your recent decision to switch to native plants? Why did you decide to do it? Have you seen any water or other savings?
I've always had a brown thumb, killing any plant I touched. We've lived in our house for 5 years, and the leftover plants from the previous owner looked sad and overrun with weeds.
But then I found out that a friend's son started a landscaping business focusing on environmentally-friendly native plants that have lower maintenance requirements and are a better fit for local wildlife.
So, we reached out to him to see if he could help us with our very sad landscaping. I am beyond thrilled with the results. Everything comes back year after year, so it was mostly a small one-time investment, far less than if we had custom (non-native) landscaping done. We spent about $6,000 on the entire project (less than half of the cost of typical non-native custom landscaping). We also have a ton of bees, birds, and butterflies now, so I also feel like we're doing a good thing for the planet.
Editor’s note: Some more info on the savings from native plants:
Various sources estimate native plants use anywhere from one-half to one-quarter the water of non-native landscaping. Our average water bill (with a very small yard), is $350/yr, but in many parts of the country a typical water bill is over $500/yr or more. Most of that comes from watering lawns and plants.
The EPA has estimated cumulative maintenance costs for native plants are less than one-fifth that of non-native landscaping. It makes sense, as far less replanting and maintenance should be needed for plants that naturally occur in the environment.
Many towns and cities offer credits or rebates for native plants. Our town, for example, offers hundreds of dollars of rebates for purchases of native plants.
Could you tell me about another recent money saving win, challenge, or story?
Not exactly a win, but I love watching Good Mythical Morning. One of their recent videos showed that it's not worth avoiding store brand items as much as I was raised to believe! There's so much money to be saved. (See also What Sleepytime Bear Taught Me About Store Brands)
Have you successfully implemented any other Saving Money with Andrew tips? Do you have a favorite post?
This post blew me away and I've been paying attention to it ever since!
Are there any words of wisdom you'd like to share with the Saving Money with Andrew readership?
Be patient. You'll almost always save money if you're willing to wait: compare prices, wait for a sale, or even decide you don't need it at all anyway!
And without further ado, here are some beautiful photos of Janice’s native plants, butterflies and all:
And now, Andrew’s pick(s) of the week:
Very useful summaries of the eight most common illnesses going around these days
The Californization of the Texas Housing Market
Schools Cut Honors Classes to Address Racial Equity. It Isn’t a Quick Fix.
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it on social media! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.