Front Yard Formal Landscaping with Native Plants

Landscaping with native plants has become popular with home gardeners, but people who are not familiar with natives can find them wild, messy, or having an untidy appearance. Through plant choice, design, and maintenance, it’s important to convey the sense that a native plant garden is intentional and maintained. 

We’ll show you how to use native plants in a more formal manner, for front yard purposes. They’ll notice your beautiful garden first, which just *happens* to be native plants, giving you the opportunity to share the benefits with people and wildlife.

The presenter for this program is James Faupel:

As of April 2024, James Faupel is the new director of horticulture at Bellefontaine Cemetery Arboretum. Previously, he was a supervisor of ecological restoration for the Missouri Botanical Garden at the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center in St. Louis County. He started his career in traditional horticulture, first working in the nursery industry and later in the design and landscaping trade but has since moved towards a more ecology-based approach to horticulture and habitat restoration.

James has been working with native plants for 17 years and enjoys watching the diversity of wildlife they provide for (especially bees), as well as opening the eyes of others to the amazing natural world that exists right outside their front doors.

This class is in partnership with Wild Ones St Charles Area Chapter, a nonprofit organization designed to promote the understanding of native plants, their benefits, and what they can provide for the environment both in private as well as public areas of landscaping.