{"id":2372729,"date":"2026-04-14T12:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T12:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2372729"},"modified":"2026-04-14T12:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T12:19:15","slug":"landscaping-with-native-plants-can-aid-stormwater-issues-entertainment-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/landscaping-with-native-plants-can-aid-stormwater-issues-entertainment-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Landscaping with native plants can aid stormwater issues | Entertainment\/Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

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At the LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens at Burden in Baton Rouge, senior landscape manager Jason Stagg and his colleagues have been busy lately with an expansive, exciting project: planning, and planting, the landscape for the soon-to-be-opened welcome center.<\/p>\n

The facility will serve as a central information hub for visitors to the entire Burden Museum & Gardens complex, which also includes LSU\u2019s Rural Life Museum and Windrush Gardens. It will be available for event rentals, too.<\/p>\n

All of that is to say the landscape surrounding this building will have plenty of eyes on it, creating a first impression for guests \u2014 so, of course, it needs to look attractive and inviting. But Stagg and the Burden team are taking it a step further, using the project as an opportunity to spotlight interesting, functional plants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dwarf palmetto is an evergreen plant with a deep root system and unique, fanlike aesthetics.<\/p>\n

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\n LSU AgCENTER PHOTO BY OLIVIA McCLURE<\/span>
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\u201cThis landscape is a teaching landscape,\u201d Stagg said. \u201cWe\u2019re using 100% native plant material for the entire landscape. Because a lot of this site is actually in a bottomland hardwood area, we\u2019ve chosen wetland plants and used them in rain garden and bioswale installations to manage water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many plants that are native to Louisiana thrive in soggy conditions, making them outstanding choices for low-lying settings like the one where the new welcome center sits. They excel at soaking up rainwater and reducing runoff and flooding.<\/p>\n

As a bonus, native plants are tough, handling Louisiana\u2019s challenging climate with ease. And they have striking aesthetics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you take these out of nature, you get some really cool architectural features that you see when you mass them in front of a modern building,\u201d Stagg said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One of the core components of the welcome center landscape is dwarf palmetto (Sabal minor).<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve likely seen this plant \u2014 which resembles a short, fanlike palm \u2014 growing as an understory in wetland and bottomland areas along roadsides. Because it\u2019s evergreen, dwarf palmetto stands out in the winter when deciduous trees are bare.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis plant is super, super tough,\u201d Stagg said. \u201cThe stalk, or trunk, actually grows underground, meaning that this plant never gets tall, but you still get the wonderful palm fronds. It also can tolerate a lot of wetness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dwarf palmetto\u2019s deep root system also makes it a champ at fighting soil erosion.<\/p>\n

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As its name suggests, Blue Dart rush has a blue tinge.<\/p>\n

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\n LSU AgCENTER PHOTO BY OLIVIA McCLURE<\/span>
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The landscape also features two kinds of rush, a grasslike plant that\u2019s sometimes referred to as juncus. Stagg likes the vibrant green of common rush (Juncus effusus) intermingled with the blue tinge of Blue Dart rush (Juncus tenuis).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Both species have fine stems reminiscent of grass blades and are evergreen during typical Louisiana winters. Their spikey appearance lends a unique look to the landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother great quality about these juncus or rush plants is that they\u2019re clump forming, so they\u2019re not going to spread wildly or become messy or grow out of bounds,\u201d Stagg said. \u201cThey\u2019ll always maintain a neat shape, just like ornamental grasses we use in the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

These plants are being combined with native trees and shrubs \u2014 including pond cypress, Southern magnolia, black gum, yaupon holly, dwarf wax myrtle, American beautyberry and buttonbush.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these wonderful native plants are going to come together in a landscape that will show people how to use plant material to help absorb and survive some of these big rainfall inundation events,\u201d Stagg said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens at Burden in Baton Rouge, senior landscape manager Jason Stagg and his colleagues have been busy lately with an expansive, exciting project: planning, and planting, the landscape for the soon-to-be-opened welcome center. The facility will serve as a central information hub for visitors to the entire Burden Museum & […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2372730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2372729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Landscaping-with-native-plants-can-aid-stormwater-issues-EntertainmentLife.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2372729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2372731,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372729\/revisions\/2372731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2372730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2372729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2372729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2372729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}