Three Unexpected Native Plants

By Bryan Fischer | Curator of Plant Collections at The Gardens on Spring Creek

Over the last twenty or so years, surging interest in native plant gardening has propelled a number of regionally native plants into the common consciousness. As is the case in many popularity contests, this has left a whole group of our native flora—often great garden plants—overlooked. Below are three plants native to Colorado, the High Plains, and the Southern Rockies, that you may not know or may simply have not heard are native plants worth growing. Keep your eyes peeled to find them at our annual plant sale, online, or at sales by regional nurseries this coming season. 

Allium schoenoprasum, Common Chives

While the chives we know in cultivation were probably first cultivated from plants originating in the Old World, the same plant we call chives is native across a good portion of the Rockies, too. In Colorado, it can be found in the close-to-home Jackson and Larimer counties, where it appreciates wet feet in seasonally moist mountain meadows. Wild plants in the West are more likely to grow as tall tufts (easily two feet high in places), while Old World forms are more often seen as a lower-growing (one foot or so) wider clump of narrow, dark green foliage in the garden. Both produce cheery, one-inch, mauve flowers that look a bit like pom-poms on tall and swaying stems in early summer. Cut this plant back after flowering to moderate its self-seeding in irrigated gardens and experience what I’ve heard referred to as nature’s “ode to Taco Bell”. 

Iliamna rivularis, Wild Hollyhock

Most of us who garden or grew up with a grandparent who gardened recognize hollyhocks. Swaying spikes covered in crepe-paper petals, the tall plants became widely planted as they made their way West, with one particular seed strain of the plants marking outhouses to ensure a visitor wouldn’t need to ask crudely for such directions. With smaller yards and—thankfully—fewer outhouses in our gardens today, wild hollyhock makes a superb replacement. Native up and down the Rockies, this plant resembles a pink-flowered hollyhock in every way except it remains a modest three feet tall. Grow it with moderate moisture in a site that offers full sun or afternoon shade to maximize its cheery offerings. 

Lilium philadelphicum, Wood Lily, Wild Lily

Like wild hollyhock, this native looks more like a garden plant we know than one we expect to see along a mountain road or dusty trail. Also, like wild hollyhock, this plant shares roots with a host of other species that now grow in Asia but is native across much of the Colorado high country.  Since it appreciates seasonally wet feet, this plant is most often spotted in wet meadows and other places with good soil moisture. Or, from a roadside at 60 mph—with bright-orange flowers typically five inches across, the plant is virtually impossible to miss or misidentify when spotted in the wild. Wood lily appreciates afternoon shade on the Front Range, a richer soil, and reliable irrigation.