River-Friendly Gardening Tips for Northern Nevada Homes

Have you had a chance to visit Lake Park’s River-Friendly Living Demonstration Garden? Installed last spring, the garden is full of native plants and landscaping features perfectly suited for our high desert environment.

The Demonstration Garden: One Year Later

Since we planted the Demonstration Garden (in partnership with the City of Reno and Friends of Lake Park and with funding from the United States Environmental Protection Agency and Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and Western Regional Water Commission.), it’s been growing in quickly. With little maintenance, the native plants we’ve added to Lake Park have been thriving!

What’s more, the City of Reno with funding from the Truckee River Fund has continued to add new plants to Lake Park . Last fall, they installed floating wetland islands, creating safe nesting habitats for our local birds and fish. This spring, they’ll plant more native species along the shoreline.

Throughout the seasons, the River-Friendly Demonstration Garden has helped beautify the Lake Park neighborhood. As it’s getting ready to come to life with spring color, this is an ideal time to start exploring it.

According to Lake Park resident Cathy Schmidt, “The  River-Friendly Demonstration Garden at Lake Park is a huge hit with park visitors! Every day someone comments on how nice the park looks, and many people stop to read the informational garden signs. It has completely changed the southwest corner of the park. We are all looking forward to seeing what Spring brings in the garden.” She’s especially enjoying the pollinator garden, blanket flower plants, showy milkweed, red yuccas, and the rock garden with the succulents.

Planting River-Friendly at Home

While the River-Friendly  Demonstration Garden is improving Lake Park, just as importantly, it’s offering suggestions of what our yards could look like. "You could consider including native plants in your home garden because they require less maintenance, attract pollinators (like native bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies), and are a beautiful way to show off your Nevada pride,” shares Carrie Jensen, a local landscaper and Urban Integrated Pest Management and Pesticide Safety Education Programs Coordinator at UNR Extension.

Native plants save time, energy, and money as – once established – they need less water and maintenance then turf grass and other traditional gardening staples. They’re well adapted to nutrient poor soils with low organic matter, which many of us Northern Nevadans already have in our yards.

Some species Carrie recommends for local yards are desert globemallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua), sulfur buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum), royal penstemon (Penstemon speciosus), firecracker penstemon (Penstemon eatonii), and showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa).

When adding native species to our home gardens, Jensen explains, fall is often the easiest time to plant them, since the cooler and wetter winters months help them grow supportive room systems. However, many species will still do well when planted in springtime. When planting native species in spring, it’s important to water regularly, perhaps as often as 3 times per week in the heat of summer. After the first summer, you can gradually reduce watering in each subsequent year. 

By the third year, your native plants will hardly need any watering at all – perhaps once or twice a month in summer! It’s so convenient, and one of our favorite things about gardening with River-Friendly local species.