Workwise, Josh Scott is an ultra-marathoner. On a sunny, brisk spring morning, the arborist and owner of Beetlebung Tree Care walks around a spectacular 70-acre property on Squibnocket Pond with caretaker Tim Rich. Visually, they are quite a pair. Tim is tall, maybe six-six with a long, lumbering stride while Josh has the wiry build and nimble movements of a runner.

For a homeowner, especially one with a fondness for gardening and landscaping, winter is the season for making plans and thinking about the possibilities of the coming year. As you contemplate your yard this winter, here’s a question to ask yourself: “How much lawn do I really need?”

Modern patterns of homebuilding and landscaping tend to make sod-grass lawn the default use for any available space.

Five or six years ago Kristin Henriksen started doing lectures on Martha’s Vineyard about the value of planting Island native plants.

“And afterwards,” she recalled yesterday, “people would come up to me and ask where they could get them. And I had to say I didn’t know.”

And so in 2006, she opened a nursery called Going Native, in Vineyard Haven. And when she talks native, she means local. Not native to North America, not native to New England, but Island native genotypes — plants from seeds collected here.