Native Plant Gardening

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Why native plants?

According to the The National Audubon Society:

Restoring native plant habitat is vital to preserving biodiversity. By creating a native plant garden, each patch of habitat becomes part of a collective effort to nurture and sustain the living landscape for birds and other animals.

What our community is about—

This community is for everyone who is interested in planting native species in their garden. Come here for discussions, questions, and sharing of ideas/photos.

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Don't be a jerk.
Don't spam.
Stay on topic.
Specify your region in the post title. This is a global community, so designating your region is important.

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Want to grow a native pollinator garden but are uncertain where to begin? The Xerces Society has you covered! (xerces.org)

submitted 5 months ago by fireweed to c/[email protected]

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Disclaimer: data only available for the lower 48 United States, although Southern Canada and Northern Mexico should be able to extrapolate

The Xerces Society is an insect conservation nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon. They engage in a variety of work to protect native insects, including publishing resources for the general public.

One such resource are their Native Plants for Pollinators and Beneficial Insects guides, which are curated illustrated lists of plants broken down by geographic region. The lists include basic growing conditions info for each species, as well as some info on how the plants benefit insects. They even have separate lists specifically for supporting the endangered monarch butterfly.

If you're a native plant fanatic like me you can cross-reference their lists with the USDA Plants Database (I wrote about that other great resource in this post here) to verify if the Xerces-recommended plants are native to your county, however the Xerces lists are broken up into relatively small regions so you're unlikely to cause damage or introduce problematic species even if it's not technically native to your specific county.

I hope y'all find these lists as useful/inspiring as I have!

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[–] anon6789 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for such a great response! You've given me a ton of helpful information.

I'll have to scout out some scatter sites. I don't have a yard of my own. I have room for some pots outside, but I thought I could scatter some by park trails or the train tracks going through the woods.

It seems everything you recommend is easy to get online, from tiny packs to 25 pound pails! I'll have to get some and try my luck this fall.

Thank you so much!

[–] fireweed 2 points 5 months ago

I'm not engaged in "guerrilla gardening" myself, but generally it's recommended to scatter seeds in empty/underutilized lots, along highways, etc rather than parks, trails, and other spaces that are either maintained/monitored or are already wild. So maybe look for somewhere like these:

Good luck!