Easter Bunny treating your rain garden like a picnic lunch? Try these less tempting native plants!

An eastern cottontail rabbit sits in the middle of a lawn with a small white flower in its mouth.
March 15, 2025
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Worried about the Easter Bunny treating your rain garden like a picnic lunch?

No worries! Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection has you covered.  Try replacing the early spring snacks of the eastern cottontail with these less tempting stormwater favorites:

Two purple blue flag iris flowers surrounded by green vegetation.

Northern blue flag iris flowers are vibrant blue or purple and thrive in wet areas.

Iris versicolor (Northern blue flag iris) – Great for Inlets and other high flow areas, this flowering perennial can grow up to 3 feet tall.  They tend to bloom, in blue or purple shades, from May thru August.

A cluster of small yellow flowers with orange centers surrounded by green stalks and leaves.

Golden Ragwort provides great ground cover and can fill in space between larger plants like shrubs and trees.

Packera aurea (golden ragwort) – This workhorse perennial can handle life on the edge, at inlets and the top of berms. It is also a favorite for ground cover or filler in between shrubs or trees. These yellow flowers bloom from March thru August.

These next three plants are great choices for the lower basin area of a rain garden. Plants installed here need to be able to tolerate a few inches of water after heavier storms but hold their own in a drought.

 

A cluster of small pink flowers atop a stem with large green leaves.

Joe-Pye Weed comes in a tall and shorter variety, but both sport beautiful pink-purple flowers.

Eupatorium dubium (Joe-Pye Weed) – This beautiful pollinator powerhouse can grow up to 5.5 feet tall; however, there is also a dwarf cultivar called “Little Joe.”  Both variations bloom in pinks and purples from July thru October.

Small blue-purple flowers run up a long green stem with busy green leaves below.

False indigo grows flowers up the stem in tall spires.

Baptisia australis (False indigo) –This is a great way to add a different texture or shape to your rain garden. The 2-4 foot spires have a woody base and the blue or purple blooms come out from April to July.

 

 

 

 

Small white flowers of mountain mint clustered around green leaves.

Mountain mint is great for shadier gardens.

Pycnanthemum spp. (mountain mint) – This member of the mint family is considered less aggressive than other mint family members. They will spread out and propagate and are a great choice for gardens that struggle to keep a variety of plants in place or have more shade cover. They grow up to 3 feet tall and bloom from July thru August.