Digging Into Native Plants

“Native” plants in gardening has many interpretations—and it's easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of information, opinions and options available online. At a high level, here's what being a native plant means to us:

• The plant will thrive in your local conditions. It's well suited to your area’s rainfall, temperatures and soil.
• It will require low to no maintenance—no spraying, no staking or pruning, no extra feeding or extra watering.
• It's not aggressive or invasive. It plays well with others, so you can just plant it and it will look after itself.
• And as a bonus, it provides extra benefits to local wildlife beyond its beauty and form, offering birds, bees, butterflies or insects a habitat or food source.

We don’t worry about when a plant was introduced. Nature is always evolving, and plants migrate to their best advantage with the wind, animals, and water always at work spreading seeds far and wide. We also don’t worry if improved selections have been made along the way. If a plant supports its local community, we happily welcome it into our garden.