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Photo by Kimball Kraus Photo by Sylvia Bacon Photo by Shauneen Hutchinson
Monarchs on bottlebrush .
Southern blue flag iris .
Southern blue flag iris .
Planting a single longleaf pine ( Pinus palustris ) can help to sustain numerous birds . The seeds in the pinecones provide food for mourning doves , quail , turkeys , and woodpeckers . And who does not love the grassy soft bright green foliage of a longleaf pine ? Our Southern blue flag ( Iris virginica ) provides nectar for hummingbirds and bees and likes “ wet feet ,” so if you have a consistently moist spot and mostly sunny spot , try this perennial . And while our iconic sweetgrass is pretty and omnipresent on Kiawah , it too provides food — seeds for songbirds and small mammals . The seeds form when the plant is flowering .
Our native plants are beautiful and worth exploring . If you found yourself asking , “ What plants should I add to my garden ” and “ I wonder which ones are salt-tolerant and suffer little from deer browsing ,” you might want to check out the Grow Native Kiawah Island Plant Database
http :// www . grownativekiawah . com /. You can sort the database by trees , shrubs , perennials , grasses , ferns , and vines . Each plant entry includes the wildlife benefits and attributes , if known .
Background of Grow Native In Spring 2018 , a subcommittee of the Town of Kiawah Island ’ s Environmental Committee was formed to explore ways to improve the wildlife habitat of developed properties on Kiawah . The subcommittee called the Kiawah Landscape Working Group ( KLWG ) included representatives from each Kiawah entity and a Kiawah homeowner . What resulted from the committee ’ s work is a well-researched comprehensive native plant list using data from numerous sources , including :
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South Carolina Wildlife Federation native plant list .
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South Carolina Native Plant Society ’ s Dewees Island native plant list .
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Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center online database selected for the South Carolina region .
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A vegetation survey of Kiawah Island prepared by Joel Gramling , PhD , 2012 .
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The 1975 Environmental Inventory of Kiawah Island prepared for Coastal Shores , Inc . by the Environmental Research Center , Inc . of Columbia , S . C .
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Inventory of South Carolina ’ s Coastal Marshes , 1974 , prepared by the South Carolina Wildlife and Marine Resources Department .
These six sources yielded a list of 530 plants , which were reduced to about 400 by :
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Selecting only those plants from the lower coastal plain physiographic region from the South Carolina Plant Atlas ( see the lightest area on the map on the next page ).
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Being mentioned by at least two of the above six sources qualified the plant to be included in the Grow Native Plant Database .
Naturally Kiawah