University of Arkansas Plant Study Offers Native Alternatives

Few Arkansans can identify an Ozark wake robin trillium or a blood root, says UA graduate Janet Coleman.

As part of her research for a SILO undergraduate research fellowship, titled Native Plants: The Preservation and Restoration of Native Plants in Designed Landscapes in Northwest Arkansas, Coleman says that plants available at local nurseries or in catalogs often dictate what people plant in their gardens.

As a result, Arkansas landscapes are becoming ubiquitous: you're as likely to find non-native shrubs, such as crapemyrtle and boxwood, in new developments in Fayetteville as you would in Anywhere, USA. Coleman's solution: restore the region's landscape identity by landscaping with native plants.

Offering readers native alternatives like Ozark witch hazel or the lead plant, she explains in detail how to start your own native plant garden and includes a base map and site inventory. If beginning gardeners are unsure about where to buy native plants, they should look no futher.

"Janet Coleman's research project is part of an effort in the landscape architecture profession to create a new area of knowledge which can be applied to landscape design: the use of native plants in designed landscapes," says Department of Landscape Architecture Professor Karen Rollet-Crocker.

Rollet-Crocker oversaw Coleman's SILO research project during the 2001---02 academic year.

She says this knowledge "requires an understanding of native plant associations, ecology and landscape preservation in unique regional environments."

It's this same desire for knowledge that has landed Coleman in one of the most prestigious landscape architecture master's programs in the country, the School of Environmental Design at the University of Georgia, where she will study under Darrel G. Morrison, one of the leading researchers on native plants.

SURF/SILO fellowships like Coleman's were developed by the state of Arkansas in 1993 to encourage undergraduate students to conduct in-depth research projects in their specific fields. The SURF program provides students with the opportunity to conduct research, prepare formal presentations and develop written and verbal skills.

"Janet's thoughtful and thorough work will only enhance the ecology and sense of place of the Arkansas landscape," says Department of Landscape Architecture Head Fran Beatty.