When those first warm weekends of spring arrive, it can be tempting to rush to the home and garden center and fill your cart with any number of blooming beauties. All the flowers and shrubs look wonderful – they’re all green, flowering and lush. It’s easy to get excited about filling flower beds and containers in your garden with all these plants. But the question is: are they right for your space and the local climate?

You need to pay attention to more than just the plant’s appearance when you get ready to make that purchase. Most plants come with at least some basic instruction on how much space they need for planting as well as water and sun requirements. If you have a shady yard, don’t pick the plants that require full sun.

Do you have a lot of time to devote to your plants? If not, you might want to avoid anything that requires you to remove spent blooms or that needs extra watering. You’ll want to stick with low-maintenance plants.

Charleston’s hot and humid climate can be tough on plants so it’s also important to select plants that can tolerate heat and humidity. Native plants are a good choice because they are accustomed to the long, hot summers and won’t turn to a wilted or fried pile the first week of July.

A skilled Charleston landscape company will be able to help you identify the best plants for your garden, especially if you’re installing a new landscaped area. Also, the South Carolina Native Plant Society is an excellent resource to help you determine native plants for the Charleston area.

For coastal South Carolina, the society suggests flowering perennials like butterfly weed, evening primrose, black-eyed Susan and seaside goldenrod and grasses like sweetgrass, foxtail grass and sea oats. Check out the full list of native plants appropriate for coastal South Carolina.

Not only will native plants add beauty to your gardens, they provide food and shelter for 10 to 15 times as many species of native wildlife as non-native plants, according to the South Carolina Native Plant Society. The native plants are also easier on the gardener because they are adapted to local weather conditions and require little watering.

So on your first springtime trip to the garden center take extra care to look for native plants and those that will best fit your garden conditions.