When Heather Mikes and Tim Fitchett moved into their Regent Square home about six years ago, the only thing they didn’t love was the yard. Except for a few scattered rhododendrons, it consisted of standard-issue grass and an ivy-covered hillside. In the isolation of the pandemic, Mikes threw herself into transforming their outdoor space. A physician, she was also seeking “an equally demanding hobby,” she says, to balance the professional pressures of those days. A few native seedlings from a Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens sale got things rolling. The more she dabbled with indigenous plants, the more there was to discover.
Why Grow Native Species in Western Pennsylvania
“I knew nothing about natives,” recalls Mikes. “But I began to realize how much healthier and more interesting my yard would be if I filled it with pollinator species.”
Before long, she was sowing a transformation. Today, the greenspace around their residence is a wonderland of flora historically at home in Western Pennsylvania.
The varieties include Joe Pye weed, bee balm, New England aster, and milkweed. The latter is a herbaceous perennial essential to the prolifera tion of monarch butterflies, a species likely to soon be listed as federally endangered. “We love when birds visit, but seeing monarchs in the yard is just jaw-dropping,” says Mikes.
Fitchett, an environmental attorney, got on board with his wife’s mission. He built garden boxes, native bee and wasp “hotels,” and a greenhouse. Because every ecosystem needs a pond for balance, the couple added a small water feature to their backyard. Mikes repurposes the branches her neighbors bundle and put out for trash. She composts food scraps for fertilizer.
In response to what she calls “my own little native plant movement,” at least one neighbor has been inspired to start composting too.
Leading by Example
Mikes has joined a growing number of gardeners “rewilding” their urban and suburban green space. They are embracing the kinds of plants that have thrived in our region for millennia, existing symbiotically with native birds and other wildlife — before manicured lawns and imported cultivars, such as hybrid tea roses, became the reigning fashion. With a groundswell of support from conservation groups and government entities like the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, they are driving the return to a garden aesthetic rooted in native ecology.
“We call it thinking outside the boxwood,” says Ed Wrenn, a retired physician who co-founded the Western Pennsylvania chapter of Wild Ones. A national nonprofit, Wild Ones has been generating buzz about natural landscaping for nearly 50 years. “Our mission is to inspire people to learn about, and use, natives through networking opportunities, plant sales, and garden tours,” says Wrenn. “And we like to lead by example.”
To that point, Wrenn is creating a large pollinator garden at his new residence in Swisshelm Park, just as he had at his former home. He is smothering the lawn — “an ecological dead zone,” he says — with 200 bags worth of leaves collected from throughout several neighborhoods, and mulch donated by an arborist who cut down a tree on his street. Sarah Flanders is a member of Wild Ones. She augments her Squirrel Hill pollinator garden with annuals for season-long color, opting for a 70/30 native to non-native mix.
Beauty and Service
She points out, however, that many natives can be just as striking. They include red bee balm, purple aster, pink swamp rose mallow, orange butterfly weed, and smooth azaleas, which produce trumpet-like tangerine blooms in spring. Wrenn installed shrubs such as red osier dogwood and arrowwood viburnum. He plans to add an array of herbaceous perennials like eastern columbine, prickly pear cactus, and wild ginger. Trees may include serviceberry, river birch, and dwarf chinquapin oak.
High on his list is pawpaw, a fruit-bearing native and sole host of the zebra swallowtail butterfly, which in 2024, was spotted in a pollinator garden in Greenfield, the first Pittsburgh sighting of the black-and-white insect in 87 years. The transition to a wild garden can be labor-intensive at first, especially if it involves removing turf grass and stubborn invasives, like Japanese knotweed, burning bush, and English privet, says Wrenn. But once established, a wild space is relatively self-sustaining, which means less work for the gardener.
“There’s no more grass to mow, and little need to water,” he says. “We encourage people to ‘leave the leaves’ in fall, so they can enrich soil and promote insect life at the base of the food chain.”
A Chain Reaction
In the bigger picture, natural landscapes keep synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides out of groundwater and waterways. They also make for quieter, cleaner communities, since gas-powered mowers, blowers, or other such equipment are not needed. The online landscaping platform Yardzen reports that 91 percent of its clients want plants that encourage bees, butterflies, and other climate-helping pollinators, and 76 percent want native or climate-adapted plants. According to the National Wildlife Federation, the number of people planning to transform at least a portion of their lawn to a native garden more than doubled from 9% in 2019 to 19% in 2021. With rewilded spaces trending, converts to the cause say it takes a village to keep the momentum going. They promote outreach and education, access to resources, and even changes in public policy.
How to Start Planting
“Sharing native plants or seeds with neighbors is a good way to nudge others toward interest and acceptance,” says Chris Kosin, founder of the Garfield-based GaiaScape Landscaping LLC and a sustainable land-care professional accredited by Phipps. “So is putting up a small sign that declares what you are doing and shows intention.”
Kosin recalls working on a Highland Park yard about two years ago, planting more than 800 perennial plugs (young plants) along with sweet pepperbush and inkberry shrubs as alternatives to boxwood. One skeptical neighbor asked why the client was getting rid of their “beautiful lawn.” Kosin is confident the reason will be clear this spring, “when the yard is abuzz with bees and birds.”
The client’s next-door neighbor, meanwhile, became intrigued by the changes and has hired Kosin to create something similar. Some municipalities are taking action to support rewilding efforts. The borough of Sharpsburg maintains a pollinator garden, as do Swissvale and Edgewood. And late last year, Sharpsburg amended its nuisance vegetation code to permit residents to plant pollinator habitats.
The gardeners must obtain certification that they are growing bona fide pollinator habitats, proving to neighbors that their potentially odd-looking garden has purpose. The ordinance is intended “to encourage people to have pollinator gardens,” says borough manager Christine DeRunk, as the certification process helps them create gardens that succeed. Penn State Extension Master Gardeners is among the groups that provide the certification, specifying the types and numbers of trees and other vegetation required. In Allegheny County, there are more than 90 Penn State-certified gardens.
Other Ways to Dive Into Native Plants
Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania sponsors its own backyard habitat certification program, working one-on-one with homeowners to develop sustainable garden plans. Audubon also encourages municipalities to cultivate wildlife-friendly habitats in parks and other public spaces by partnering in Bird Town Pennsylvania. Both initiatives are wildly popular, says Audubon spokesperson Rachel Handel. The backyard program has a waiting list, she says, and the number of “bird towns” — which now include Fox Chapel, Swissvale, Wilkinsburg, and Millvale — is steadily growing.
While every garden is its own “mini nature center,” says Handel, cultivating many across the landscape would have a powerful impact. Collectively, they can help stem an alarming decline in insects as well as the birds who depend on them for food, like chimney swifts and golden-winged warblers. Those are two of the more than 70 species that have lost half of their populations in the past 50 years. Audubon’s mission aligns with that of Homegrown National Park, a national organization founded in 2020 by conservationist Doug Tallamy, a leading figure in the rewilding movement. Reducing America’s 40 million acres of lawn by half, removing invasive plant species, and growing more natives would significantly boost biodiversity, according to HNP, which invites property owners who have joined the campaign to pin their gardens to an online map.
Take Your Eco-Footprint a Step Further
“Choosing to go native signals to others that you care about the environment,” says Melinda Guinn, a Fox Chapel resident who last year won a sustainable garden award from Phipps for her ecological approach to stormwater management.
Instead of installing an underground collection tank, Guinn created an 80-by-30-foot basin and planted a density of river birch, buttonbush, winter berry, shrub willow, silky dogwood, American plum, native cattails, and other species. Altogether, they provide a natural and more dynamic system, allowing precipitation to infiltrate the earth.
As a member of the borough’s Park Commission, Guinn also has helped lead efforts to excite others about the difference they can make. In May, volunteers will gather at McCahill Park for the borough’s annual Garlic Mustard Pull, an event that targets a common invasive. Last fall, residents willing to “leave the leaves” were offered free trees as a way to enrich the landscape while saving the borough maintenance costs. “It’s hard to imagine ways to save the world,” says Guinn, “but you can feel good about planting a native tree on your property.”
…Even if It’s Little by Little
Going wild doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition, says Sandy Feather, a Penn State Extension green industry team educator, who maintains a half-acre garden at her suburban home. Although it includes an abundance of natives, Feather, a self-professed “plant geek,” grows annual non-natives, too, such as zinnias and pineapple sage. “Zinnias are incredibly attractive to butterflies,” says Feather, who also teaches in Phipps’ sustainable land care program. “And pineapple sage — oh, my gosh, the hummingbirds love it.”
“The sage blooms around the same time as my goldenrod, which is native, but even when the goldenrod was done last fall, the sage was still flowering, and bumblebees were happily feasting on it.” Developing a pollinator-friendly space requires intentionality to ensure that the right plants are in the right space, she advises. “The ‘meadow in a can’ thing doesn’t work.”
Flanders, the Wild Ones member in Squirrel Hill, aims to create a lush habitat at her home that is as attractive to the human eye as it is to wildlife. “It’s totally my happy place,” she says. “It makes me feel really connected to the earth. It’s calming. It makes me think I’m doing something for the world, for other people, and for the planet.”
Local Resources for Native Plants
- Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania
- Bird Town Pennsylvania
- Fox Chapel Garden Club
- Penn State Center for Pollinator Research
- Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
- Wild Ones, Western PA Chapter
Story by Deborah Weisberg