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Garden Visit: Refugia’s Quiet Revolution in Philadelphia’s Suburbs – Gardenista

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For the past eight years, Jeff Lorenz and his team at Refugia, a landscape design-build firm, have been part of a quiet revolution in the Philadelphia suburbs. Little by little, they’re transforming yards, replacing traditional—and ecologically sterile—lawns with vibrant native gardens that teem with pollinators, handle weather extremes with ease, and flaunt their good looks four seasons of the year.

“We want to restore nature to neighborhoods by recreating the habitat that has been stripped out of most of our urban and suburban yards,” Lorenz says. Working with a native plant palette from the mid-Atlantic region, as well as some prairie species and varieties from southern locales, they design dynamic landscapes that are planted densely to create a lush web of vegetation, which cuts down on weeds. Since native plants are adapted to the region, they don’t require much intervention to thrive. They are also resilient, weathering drought (“They may go dormant for a bit, but they pop right back up”) and deluges caused by super storms (“It was unbelievable how they soaked up water like a sponge and mitigated flooding, unlike at neighboring properties”). “We like to say we put our plants to work,” Lorenz says.

As a result, pollinators flock to their gardens. “Within minutes of taking plants out for planting, you’ll see insects buzzing around the goldenrod,” says Lorenz. And that’s the point. “We called our company Refugia because that’s what we want our landscapes to be—refuges for our clients and for the wildlife all around us.”

Below, we tour two of their hardworking landscapes.

Newton Square, PA

Above: Bees flock to ‘Baby Joe’ Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium ‘Baby Joe’) that grows around a bluestone path, connecting the foundation beds with a butterfly garden at the rear of the house in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
If you plant it, they will come. Pollinators zip to bee balm, like this swallowtail butterfly, which sips nectar from Monarda fistulosa or wild bee balm. The summer-blooming native species can reach four feet in height and does best in part to full sun in areas with good drainage.
Above: If you plant it, they will come. Pollinators zip to bee balm, like this swallowtail butterfly, which sips nectar from Monarda fistulosa or wild bee balm. The summer-blooming native species can reach four feet in height and does best in part to full sun in areas with good drainage.
Refugia wants to create immersive experiences for their clients, inviting spaces that are an extension of their home. This path is surrounded by purple Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium ‘Baby Joe’), yellow prairie coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), blue cardinal flower (Lobelia siphilitica), magenta Echinacea purpurea, and golden Rudbeckia fulgida.
Above: Refugia wants to create immersive experiences for their clients, inviting spaces that are an extension of their home. This path is surrounded by purple Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium ‘Baby Joe’), yellow prairie coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), blue cardinal flower (Lobelia siphilitica), magenta Echinacea purpurea, and golden Rudbeckia fulgida.
Coneflowers, such as Echinacea purpurea and the cultivar Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’, are especially loved by bees and wasps.
Above: Coneflowers, such as Echinacea purpurea and the cultivar Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’, are especially loved by bees and wasps.

Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) and bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix) grow together in a meadow. Lorenz has found that bottlebrush grass has been effective in stopping the spread of invasive Japanese stilt grass, which has been invading woodlands in the mid-Atlantic region. “Bottlebrush grass is also well-behaved,” says Lorenz. “It won’t take over an area, but simply intermingles with other plants. Plus, it works in full sun and deep shade.”
Above: Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) and bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix) grow together in a meadow. Lorenz has found that bottlebrush grass has been effective in stopping the spread of invasive Japanese stilt grass, which has been invading woodlands in the mid-Atlantic region. “Bottlebrush grass is also well-behaved,” says Lorenz. “It won’t take over an area, but simply intermingles with other plants. Plus, it works in full sun and deep shade.”

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