Native Plants for Maine

Close to nine-tenths of Maine is forested, a higher proportion than any other state. The bedrock underneath is largely granite and other acidic rock, and the soils that formed on it are correspondingly acidic, thin in places, and low in the nutrients that limestone country supplies for free.

This is good news if you plant what belongs. The acid-soil flora of the north woods is excellent garden material: blueberry, sheep laurel, bunchberry, wintergreen, and the ferns that carpet a spruce-fir understory all want exactly what Maine ground offers. It is bad news if you arrive with a plant list from farther south and start liming.

The season is short and the winters are long, particularly inland and north. Species rated to the warm end of the range will find their limit here.

The coast is a different state

Maine's coastline moderates the climate substantially. Southern coastal counties run several hardiness zones warmer than the northern interior, and summer fog along the mid-coast and Downeast keeps humidity high and temperatures down in a way that suits species which struggle in hotter summers.

Salt matters near the water. Wind-driven spray reaches well inland on exposed points, and plants without salt tolerance brown off on the windward side. The native coastal plants, including beach plum, bayberry, and the seaside goldenrods, handle it as a matter of course.

The blueberry barrens Downeast are a distinctive Maine habitat: open, acidic, glacially scoured ground where lowbush blueberry spreads into vast natural stands. That same plant is one of the best low native groundcovers available for an acidic, sunny site in a yard.

Planting for a compressed season

Spring planting is generally safer than fall through most of the state, since roots need time in unfrozen ground and Maine's autumn does not offer much of it. In the southern coastal counties early fall still works.

Reliable snow cover is real insulation, and where you can count on it, plants survive colder air than their rating implies. Leave stems and seed heads standing through winter for the birds and for the insects overwintering inside them, and cut back in late spring.

Confirming what is native to your county

The Josselyn Botanical Society and the Maine Natural Areas Program document the state's flora and its rare species, and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension publishes practical guidance. Wild Seed Project, based in Maine, focuses specifically on growing native plants from seed in this region.

Sources: Maine Natural Areas Program, Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry (natural communities and rare plants); University of Maine Cooperative Extension (regional guidance); USDA PLANTS Database (native status by state).