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You had to be a little invested to find West Richland’s annual Tapteal Native Plant sale, located along a hidden back road. Once there, people bustled about rows of multicolored bunchgrasses and baby shrubs that stood less than an inch tall.
The sale also had some more established shrubs. Valerie Landon studied the chokecherry and golden currants, asking what kind of sunlight they needed.
“ I always plant a tree on top of a dog that I buried, and I've buried a couple of dogs in the past few years,” Landon said. “It’s a good way to memorialize them and bring a little bit of life to where they are.”
For years, Landon has adorned her yard in Finley, Washington, with native plants to feed local pollinators and birds.
“ You need to buy into the idea of something that looks a little wild. If you want the traditional idea of gardens, everything lined up neat and tidy, you're probably not going to get that effect,” she said.
Native plant people evangelize their gardens like seeds in the wind.
For some, it’s the unique beauty of the shrubsteppe landscape, changing from one season to the next. It’s also one way to combat drought.
“Those bunch grasses and those shrubs have really long, deep roots and that helps them survive on such little precipitation and really insulates them from the heat and drought of summer,” said Kelsey Kelmel, who runs the Heritage Garden Program for the Benton Conservation District.
Summer is when the region really needs water for drinking, irrigation and aquatic habitat. Parts of Puget Sound and Central Washington are currently experiencing droughtIn an unprecedented move this month, the Washington Department of Ecology stopped surface water use in the Yakima Basin. The restriction ends on Oct. 31.
According to the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Workgroup, these water resources are going to get more pinched as the climate changes.
The Tri-Cities gets about seven inches of rain per year, and an average lawn needs at least 30 inches of precipitation per year, Kelmel said.
“This water ... is supplying our agriculture, rural economy and all of that, too,” she said.
Instead of lawns, Kelmel said landscaping yards with even a few native plants can reduce water usage.
“Native plants have found a very strategic way to live here,” she said.
With the Heritage Garden Program, Kelmel said she hopes to see more native plants in yards throughout the Tri-Cities. Each year, she’s made house calls, checking out the light and shade, asking about each person’s preferences.
Then, she designs a plan specific to each space, complete with pictures of the plants and descriptions of how to care for them.
“We're still in kind of the early adopter phase. The people who are doing it because they want to,” she said. “I think we are reaching a point, though, where we're going to need to be doing more of these native or drought-tolerant landscapes.”
Demand for the free service is increasing as water concerns also rise, she said. In 2021, the Benton Conservation District conducted around 50 site visits. So far this year, they’ve conducted 100 visits.
“Anecdotally, I've also noticed increased interest from municipalities, irrigation districts and landscape providers,” Kelmel said.
The conservation district started the Tri-Cities program in 2012, in partnership with the Columbia Basin chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society.
It’s since spread to seven more counties east of the Cascades.
The push for more climate-specific plants could likely work anywhere, like in Arizona’s desert southwest. Cacti, turf or landscaping rocks cover numerous yards throughout the state, often in response to the state’s climate and long-term, severe drought. Some rivers and reservoirs in Arizona are slowly drying up, Kelmel said.
“ I think we don't think that could happen here. I feel like that's a very big assumption,” Kelmel said. “ These resources, because they are finite, the way we use them is impactful.”
However, it’s not all sunshine and balsam root.
For one, a big source of the Tri-Cities program comes from grants, which Kelmel said can sometimes be limited. This year, it received a grant from the state Department of Ecology for the 2025-2027 biennium through part of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan. Another source of funding comes from conservation district rates and charges.
Also, native gardening can be a tough sell. There’s a learning curve when you transition from a lawn to a native garden.
“ It's totally different than what we're used to in the method that we're gardening,” Kelmel said.
A big lesson people could take from native plants, Kelmel said, is patience. It’ll take at least three years for newly planted young ones to grow strong roots. Then, she said, they’ll take off.
"It's really actually fun to observe your space shift and grow over time and let those plants do some of the work for you,” Kelmel said.
