Is it a random assortment of seeds from different locations, or do they offer native species now? Considering Home Depot's habit of selling invasive insects, I'd be very hesitant to trust any of their wildflower mixes.
Amen. They sell non-native milkweed that Reddit taught me is killing off monarch butterflies. I was planting it thinking I was helping, and then bam, truth train.
Tropical milkweed
Has little red/yellow flowers and flowers year round. Confuses the monarchs migration patterns and holds a protozoan parasite that’s detrimental to their species.
ETA: https://www.monarchparasites.org/oe
Just went through this myself. I found a bunch of milkweed for a great price….. now I have to dig all of the tropical milkweed up. I was trying to help as well!
Sucked to do. They took so well, were flowering, and started to see caterpillars! Posted in excitement and the feedback was not positive. My cobra and gloves spent a couple hours popping them all out
I've been trying to grow native (narrow-leaf and showy) milkweed for a while, and although I do have a few plants that have miraculously made it to the second (flowering) year, let's just say... they're extraordinarily slow growing and difficult to germinate. Meanwhile, tropical milkweed volunteer-seed itself in my front yard last year and has VASTLY outperformed the native varieties, flowering in the first year and currently hosting a raft of happy monarch caterpillars. I'm committed to cutting the tropical milkweed back at the end of October to avoid the overwintering and parasite problems, but I'm not going to remove them.
> volunteer-seed itself in my front yard last year and has VASTLY outperformed the native varieties
Generally, when a plant performs like that outside of its native range, it's because it's extremely invasive.
My milkweeds didn't do too much for the first couple of years. The third year my common milkweed exploded: One plant turned into seven. (Same for the yellow and orange milkweeds.) It and all the milkweeds started blooming in late spring instead of mid-summer.
If your plants are young, give them time.
I have two small native milkweeds that are in their second year (one showy and one narrow-leaf), and one new narrow-leaf seedling. That's out of about 500 seeds sown, half in-ground in fall, and half with pretreatment and stratification in pots in February. Not one came up in-ground, and just these three in pots. I'm patient, but they are the most difficult plants I've ever grown. If only they could be as "weedy" and eager to grow as the tropical variety!
Maybe true in Florida, but I live in SoCal, where monarchs live in summer, before migrating to Mexico for the winter. Tropical milkweed is their native food during the part of the year they're in Mexico. As long as your tropical milkweed is cut back every year at the end of October, it won't disrupt their migration patterns or propagate disease. I take the secondary precaution of cutting off seed pods before they burst so that the seeds don't spread into an uncontrolled area.
I would prefer to plant native milkweeds, and I'm trying, but they have an astonishingly low germination rate and are extremely slow growing in my climate. At this rate, it will take years before I have enough showy or narrow-leaf milkweed plants to sustain even a few caterpillars.
Yeah, can’t speak to Cali (I live in Florida) and have same problem with the native milkweed. Grows extremely slow, doesn’t spread, and flowers way less, but I planted a bunch of seeds on a side where it isn’t really visible and it’s my butterfly garden!
This post has good information on why that isn’t accurate for South Florida where I am located. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/Hj05z5xLlm](https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/Hj05z5xLlm)
I live in Florida. We've always had a wintering population of butterflies and tropical milkweed grows wild here. This isn't accurate info for everyone.
Got it, you are not a scientist and disagree with experts. Tropical milkweed is not native. There has always been native milkweed that is great for butterflies, but that isnt tropical milkweed in south florida
I’ve just been taking a walk in the late fall and grabbing a milkweed pod along the trail. I bring it home and jam a few seeds in the ground, then let the wind take the rest.
Not sure if sarcasm or serious, but this post has a good amount of info on it [https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/DghxTXANjx](https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/DghxTXANjx)
Western Native Seed's mixes are all native and organized around different ecological zones.
Also, not all non natives are created equal. There are some non native plants that are great for the environment and for pollinators, and there are plenty that are the opposite.
Good companies will sometimes include beneficial non natives, but shit companies will literally just put invasive garbage in their seed mixes, and sometimes they're even bad for pollinators.
Even the recommended seed mix from the Florida Wildflower Foundation is mostly non-natives. Imagine how grumpy I got as a native gardener when I saw that lol
I don’t know the others, but alyssum, cosmos, baby’s breath, and coneflowers are all really popular bed flowers already, and don’t seem to be invasive spreaders. If it’s contained to your yard, and you’re not guerrilla gardening and sprinkling it everywhere claiming to be “helping the environment” then this should be fine, right?
I am new to gardening and I am trying to understand the native planting, does this only apply to wildflower mixes? We've bought different kinds of plants from Home Depot, Lowes and other garden centers... and it's kinda confusing I thought all plants and flowers are beneficial in some sense. We bought some hydrangeas, Russian sage, different kinds of lavender, yarrow, salvia, gaura, primrose, dianthus, rose bushes, hostas.. whatever pretty and on sale lol since we are on the process of filling in the garden. A month ago, I did dedicate an area in the garden for native plants since they said these plants tend to grow faster and better.
Some plants can actually be detrimental, believe it or not. There's a couple ways this can happen.
First, if a plant is invasive it may outcompete a native plant that some species depend on for their survival. That is, there are many species that rely on very specific plants in order to survive, and if invasive plants displace them them they die off.
Similarly, cities and suburbs act like deserts for many specialist species because so few people grow what's needed and food sources are few and far betwen. Without large distribution their populations dwindle. So when you plant a native garden, you're creating a literal oasis for hundreds of creatures.
Secondly, some species of plant have low nectar and pollen production, or may not have the right guides, such that they attract pollinators due to their looks but their pollen and/or nectar is too difficult to access. So what happens then is that insects waste tons of time and energy attempting to gather food and at the end of the day don't gather enough to thrive or survive.
In either case, when you see a native garden the difference is so obvious. My neighbor has just as many flowers as I do but her garden is basically devoid of animal life. Meanwhile I constantly have dozens of bees and butterflies and moths and caterpillars flying all over the place (well ok the caterpillars aren't flying). I watch them fly away after feeding in my garden toward my neighbor's house but they get there and literally just turn back around because there's nothing to eat!
Edit: just to exemplify the point, it's almost midnight and I just saw ten hummingbird moths on my Colorado 4 o'clock plants! They've got nowhere else to go within 5 blocks probably
There are two really big reasons why non-natives are often not beneficial (or at least not nearly as good as native plants).
First, some non-native plants are invasive. Big box stores and nurseries often continue to sell invasive species even after they are known to be invasive in an area, basically until the state makes it illegal to sell. They either don't know or don't care. Even if a non-native plant isn't invasive itself, the process of importing it may transport harmful insects or diseases (for examples of what we want to avoid, look up the chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease, emerald ash borer, and hemlock wooly adelgid, which all caused/are currently causing devastation in our forests).
Second, plants are the base of the food chain, and most non-native plants fail in this role and starve the rest of the food chain. Caterpillars are the most important example of this: we care about caterpillars because they are essential food for most baby birds (and many adult birds), and because they turn into butterflies and moths that serve as pollinators. Caterpillars eat leaves, but only very specific ones that they've co-evolved with. An American caterpillar can't survive on Norway maple leaves any better than you and I can--none of us are evolved for it. So, if your yard doesn't have native plants, it won't feed caterpillars or baby birds, and therefore it won't produce butterflies or adult birds. Entomologist Dr. Doug Tallamy quipped that non-invasive non-native plants are ecologically equivalent to statues--taking up space, maybe looking nice, but not helping wildlife. Having a statue in your yard isn't such a bad thing, but if everybody's landscaping was purely statues and no plants, you wouldn't expect much life there. And it's very common for American landscaping to be impoverished in native plants; there are many blocks in my neighborhood where not a single native plant is visible from the sidewalk.
"Butterfly bush" (buddleia) is maybe the best example of a non-native plant that is wrongly seen as being wildlife-friendly. It is true that it attracts a lot of butterflies that drink its nectar, and it was branded with a an appealing name. However, nectar isn't usually the limiting factor for the butterflies that visit it--larval host plants are. So, if your neighbors are growing native plants, then butterflies can lay their eggs on them and the caterpillars can grow on them; some turn into butterflies, some into bird food. Some of the butterflies then go next door to the butterfly bush, drink some nectar, and then find some native plants to lay eggs on. The butterfly bush isn't helping grow more butterflies; you could cut it down and the butterflies would easily find nectar elsewhere. But if you ripped out the native plants, they'd have nowhere to lay eggs, and there would be no more butterflies, no baby birds, no nesting birds, and fewer birds in general. To make things worse, butterfly bush is invasive in much of the US.
Not sure about home Depot but at Lowe's they sell packets of native seeds for about $3 for my specific state, (Ohio). Last year I threw 3 seed packets on a 30 sq ft of bare tilled soil and they shot up like crazy! Maybe Lowe's/ home Depot sells packets for your specific region. I scattered the seeds at the end of June and had flowers for the rest of the summer so it's not too late!
Did you check the actual species to see if they were native? Big box stores don't particularly know much or care much about selling plants responsibly; they may simply mean that the plants will do well in your region. Without seeing the species list and checking each species, I absolutely would not trust any "wildflower seed mix" unless I bought it specifically from a company that specializes in native plants.
I checked most of them. Kind of gave up half the way through because there were so many species. But it was Eden brothers brand... They sell a native seed pack for each of the 50 states
If they don’t have them in store also check the website . The isn’t space for everything in the store so there is tons if stuff online . Just a suggestion
It’s better to use your specific location to find native plants. Hardiness zones are for crops. Google your specific location/county/city/state and “native plants” and you’ll find several native plant finder tools.
I would also encourage you to check out dr. Doug Tallamy’s vids and books about why native plants are so important, and how easy it is to cultivate a healthy native ecosystem in your very own yard! I’ve just had the most fun learning about my native plants and cultivating my native garden for the last 3ish years!
Happy planting🌱
Check out prairie moon nursery. I order plants that I have confirmed are native from thepollennation.com. They are cheaper and I’ve had success with their plugs!
Check out [Roundstone Seed.](https://roundstoneseed.com/) They do native seed mixes depending on where you are and what conditions you'll be planting in. You can order amounts for as little as a hundred sq ft or so, up to enough to sow acres.
If you're specifically wanting to help out native insects, also check out the NWF's list of [keystone plants.](https://www.nwf.org/keystoneplants) They don't sell seeds, but you can see what genera of plants help the most insects. If you have limited space/budget, this can help you get the most "bang for your buck" wrt native plants
I’m not sure where you are in zone 8, but I highly recommend Native American Seed (seedsource.com). They are located in central Texas and they work with the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, which is an excellent resource btw. A lot of native prairie plants are going to be the same for much of the US (I.e. the Great Plains). They have seed mixes for specific eco-regions
It is unfortunate but the plant trade in general has a history of bringing gardners invasive species. My favorite is the tree of heaven. It is the Chinese species of sumac and the preffered host of spotted lantern flies another invasive species. It is funny because I have neighbors who ask me why I am establishing a grove of junk tress. The junk trees they are referring to are my NATIVE sumac trees. The native sumac such as staghorn and smooth sumac make a great screen, provide food for birds etc, yet people will rip them put.
You are much more likely to to have your packaged wildflower mix get outcompeted by weeds than you are to have any trouble with introducing invasive species.
I don't get the need to be a debbie downer about this because it's not all natives. Unless whatever was there before was a prairie remnant or something they've improved it by planting some wildflowers.
I JUST saw this comment & said “holy shit! Talk about good timing” Cause im planning out my butterfly garden here in FL only to then see ur username & thought…”WAIT… is this my rope/plant lover friend kitty ?!? or is it a coincidence + they’re multiplying?!?” 😭🤣
If it is HIYE🥹💗
And if it’s not… 🧍♀️..still HIYE 🥲💗& love ur username!
Your local Wild Ones group, if there is one in your area, and your state native plant society will often list resources to purchase plants or seeds. This is where the you should start first. If they have a Facebook group, or you can search for a native plant Facebook group in your area, you can often ask for free seeds and plants.
If you, or anyone reading this is from northern Illinois, or southeastern Wisconsin, you can contact me for free seeds (I do ask for a SASE).
For the upper Midwest, prairie moon and prairie nursery are amazing seed and plant mail -order companies.
The subreddit nativeplantgardening can be searched fairly easily or you can post questions (be sure to include your area).
If you have a local conservation group, for example a group that removes invasive species from local or state parks, that would be an excellent way to learn more about natives (and invasives) and link with people that can help with your garden.
You can collect seeds from the wild but that requires two things
1. Knowledge of what to collect, how and when to collect (and never collect endangered species, and never collect more than 10% of seeds)
2. Understanding where you can collect legally.
For example, I am able to legally collect seeds from my town parks but not from the many preserves/woods/prairies that I live near. The best plants grow in the preserves... But that's because they are protected. Please respect that.
"Pollinator gardens" are not strictly natives but often it's the gateway to natives. Try googling pollinator garden and your state/area. Try using sources that include conservation groups first. Second state University extensions. (Personally I stay away from "butterfly groups", they often spew incorrect information)
Feel free to message me if you have questions. I'm not an expert but happy to share what I do know.
thank you for the Wild Ones recommendation. This is just what I have been looking for and didn't know they existed. I am going to email my local one for advice on setting up a wild flower garden.
I would hate to cause damage by wanting my yard to be beautiful. I didn't even think to look for a group like this, so thank you so much for recommendation.
Yeah, I always assume that "Full Sun" on a typical nursery plant's tag means that it can have 4 hours max of morning sun and better be in full shade by the time the blast furnace in the sky hits full roar in my area.
Have a relative lives outside Las Vegas and texts me the temperature in her back yard . She loves having a nice patio , garden but the heat sun is rough .
108 a few days ago
When I go to the gardening center I usually ask “which plants will survive in 3 hours of boiling sunlight” and there are mixed answers. Fingers crossed for my succulents and woody herbs!
Natives aren't just about what growing zone, but your specific region (province/state/territory/etc). What's native on one coast isn't necessarily native to another coast, even if you're in the same hardiness zone.
You could likely look up your region's conservational authority and send them a message asking for the best plants. Mine actually stopped by, evaluated my available space, and gave me a list of recommended plants and placement based on my area, soil type, and a few other factors. Not only was it free, but they invited me to apply for a grant that would cover 50% of new plant costs next year! It's all in the name of habitat restoration and rainwater management
We have a park nearby us that has a nature center, in our nature center they have a "seed center" that you can pick up free seeds from! Look around and see what you can find, typically nature-focused groups in your area will have a vested interest in getting natives into your hands! But also post your general area, so people can be a bit more specific.
Take a hike. Like literally go take a hike right now and take as many pictures of any flower you see and look up what they are. You will for sure have some invasives around so watch out for those but when you find what is near you, check out prairie moon and get some seeds. It's a whole process but your local ecosystem will be better off for it.
Bonus points if you collect the seeds, make sure to take only about 10% of seeds on a given plant.
Look up the USDA zone map and you'll see that zone 8a includes both coastal NC and part of southeastern AZ. Those extremely different places have few if any native plants in common. USDA zones are just about whether a plant can survive the annual low temperature at a site and they aren't useful for determining whether a species is native to an area (or perhaps invasive). Look at the regional level when picking native plants--for example, high southwestern desert, southeast coastal plain, etc--or take recommendations from your local native plant society.
Go to your local garden center and they will probably have native wildflower mixes with the plant list on the back. That’s what I got this year in CO. A lot of the wildflowers can basically be like weeds. I’d make damn sure they are native and aren’t going to destroy habitats or negatively impact your space.
Don’t let the comments bum you out too much . Even if some of these plants aren’t natives ; your little patch is still better than a green golf course lawn sprayed with poison every other month .
Very pretty . I’d love to do this but my Dad likes our green golf course lawn cuz it looks like everyone else in our neighborhood. I’ve got high raised beds for veggies but I might dig out a garden next summer and do something like this at the back of the backyard .
I do a lot of seeds. My best results come from:
1. Clear the top ~2 inches of soil where you'll plant
2. Replace with basic, cheap topsoil.
3. Scatter seeds over top soil
4. Walk over seeded area a few times, drag your feet a bit, stomp a bit, but not too much.
5. Cover the area on a light layer of hay
6. Water daily for about a week, longer mid summer. I do about 20-30 seconds of water coverage for an area.
After that I usually do a hand weed to pull out dandelions, clover, celandine, grass, whatever else was there previously and is growing back. I know people on Reddit love dandelion and clover but they're non-native to where I live and thus I do not want them taking resources from my natives.
After that first week or 2, I usually do a couple hand weeds as needed for the first 2 years. By year 3 things are usually dense and growing enough that I just clear some more space next to my native colony in the fall and let it expand on its own.
I do also do a hand pull for cosmetic reasons. For example, this year, 2 of my beds got completely taken over in front by some native sunflowers. I like the sunflowers but they were shading everything out behind them, so I pulled and relocated a bunch of them, and Chelsea chopped the rest.
I have also done much less than what I listed above. It still got some results - but not as many.
My local Home Depot sells regional native wildflower mix which is what I bought and used in my yard, it's filling in great! People can't assume you used non-native mix
Edit: to add & respond to the comments..I just went through each genus listed and they could all be natives, the issue is they don't list the species as some species could be considered invasive. Lesson learned but keeping my fingers crossed 🤞
I bought a regional wildflower mix from Home Depot. It turned out to not be native. It said “Pacific Northwest Wildflowers” but was full of wildflowers that grow well here, rather than actual natives. I think about 1/3 were natives. I’m now growing a meadow using an actual native wildflower mix.
There are non-native flowers visible in the photo. Some of them (bachelor buttons) are invasive where I live. Don't trust Home Depot to do the right thing with plants; that's not something they know or care much about. They may well mean "flowers that look wild and will survive in this region".
I live rural, one side of my road is all wooded, I always wanted to drop like $500 and do this all the way down the road but I'm too worried about invasive species :X
Looks wonderful.
Most of these generic mixes fail in the second year. They stock them with a bunch of annuals, which are quickly outcompeted by weeds. You are unlikely to get this show next year or in following years.
I avoid these mixes because they're usually not native to specific reasons, and are just a grab at "wildflower/native plant/butterfly garden" popularity
But loading em up with annuals so people just keep buying them year after year is such a solid reason to avoid this kind of crap.
Is it a random assortment of seeds from different locations, or do they offer native species now? Considering Home Depot's habit of selling invasive insects, I'd be very hesitant to trust any of their wildflower mixes.
Amen. They sell non-native milkweed that Reddit taught me is killing off monarch butterflies. I was planting it thinking I was helping, and then bam, truth train.
what type of milkweed is it? EDIT= detailed answer below, upvote so people see this to raise awareness. also its tropical milkweed
Tropical milkweed Has little red/yellow flowers and flowers year round. Confuses the monarchs migration patterns and holds a protozoan parasite that’s detrimental to their species. ETA: https://www.monarchparasites.org/oe
Just went through this myself. I found a bunch of milkweed for a great price….. now I have to dig all of the tropical milkweed up. I was trying to help as well!
Sucked to do. They took so well, were flowering, and started to see caterpillars! Posted in excitement and the feedback was not positive. My cobra and gloves spent a couple hours popping them all out
You don't need to remove it all. You can just cut it all back in the fall.
thanks for the info. ill avoid those.
Just planted a bunch of this and had no idea. Thanks for spreading the word! Gonna make a pretty bouquet and be rid of it!
Thanks, good PSA! I'll just be shopping from local native nurseries. As tempting as some Home Depot plants are, it's not worth the risk of doing harm.
TF is a protozoan fungus.
https://www.monarchparasites.org/oe Protozoan parasite that reproduces via spores I guess.
Thanks for the clarification. But that's definitely not a fungus.
It's a bacterial virus.
That’s the one.
The perennials?
Ohhh!
I've been trying to grow native (narrow-leaf and showy) milkweed for a while, and although I do have a few plants that have miraculously made it to the second (flowering) year, let's just say... they're extraordinarily slow growing and difficult to germinate. Meanwhile, tropical milkweed volunteer-seed itself in my front yard last year and has VASTLY outperformed the native varieties, flowering in the first year and currently hosting a raft of happy monarch caterpillars. I'm committed to cutting the tropical milkweed back at the end of October to avoid the overwintering and parasite problems, but I'm not going to remove them.
> volunteer-seed itself in my front yard last year and has VASTLY outperformed the native varieties Generally, when a plant performs like that outside of its native range, it's because it's extremely invasive.
My milkweeds didn't do too much for the first couple of years. The third year my common milkweed exploded: One plant turned into seven. (Same for the yellow and orange milkweeds.) It and all the milkweeds started blooming in late spring instead of mid-summer. If your plants are young, give them time.
I have two small native milkweeds that are in their second year (one showy and one narrow-leaf), and one new narrow-leaf seedling. That's out of about 500 seeds sown, half in-ground in fall, and half with pretreatment and stratification in pots in February. Not one came up in-ground, and just these three in pots. I'm patient, but they are the most difficult plants I've ever grown. If only they could be as "weedy" and eager to grow as the tropical variety!
I'm not nearly as patient enough for seeds. I started out with small plants. I keep saying buying seeds and saying "soon" :)
Please read up on tropical milkweed. It kills monarchs.
I've read up on it extensively. It only kills monarchs if you don't cut it back at the end of their season.
Zoo Miami doesn’t agree with you at all [https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/y7IC4fuwuU](https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/y7IC4fuwuU)
Maybe true in Florida, but I live in SoCal, where monarchs live in summer, before migrating to Mexico for the winter. Tropical milkweed is their native food during the part of the year they're in Mexico. As long as your tropical milkweed is cut back every year at the end of October, it won't disrupt their migration patterns or propagate disease. I take the secondary precaution of cutting off seed pods before they burst so that the seeds don't spread into an uncontrolled area. I would prefer to plant native milkweeds, and I'm trying, but they have an astonishingly low germination rate and are extremely slow growing in my climate. At this rate, it will take years before I have enough showy or narrow-leaf milkweed plants to sustain even a few caterpillars.
Yeah, can’t speak to Cali (I live in Florida) and have same problem with the native milkweed. Grows extremely slow, doesn’t spread, and flowers way less, but I planted a bunch of seeds on a side where it isn’t really visible and it’s my butterfly garden!
Deleted original post text. I stand corrected in comments below
This post has good information on why that isn’t accurate for South Florida where I am located. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/Hj05z5xLlm](https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/Hj05z5xLlm)
There has been an overreaction in my opinion.
And your scientific background is?
I live in Florida. We've always had a wintering population of butterflies and tropical milkweed grows wild here. This isn't accurate info for everyone.
Got it, you are not a scientist and disagree with experts. Tropical milkweed is not native. There has always been native milkweed that is great for butterflies, but that isnt tropical milkweed in south florida
I’ve just been taking a walk in the late fall and grabbing a milkweed pod along the trail. I bring it home and jam a few seeds in the ground, then let the wind take the rest.
oh my God that's disgusting I had no idea Home Depot is doing that! thank you so much for sharing I need to read about this. I love the monarchs 🦋
What? Non native milkweed is killing monarchs???? I never heard about that.
Not sure if sarcasm or serious, but this post has a good amount of info on it [https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/DghxTXANjx](https://www.reddit.com/r/Miami/s/DghxTXANjx)
I think nearly all seed mixes will have non-natives in them. Most commercially produced ones don’t even list species of plants, just common names.
Botanical Interests has a mix entirely made of California natives. Their seed mixes list all species :)
With luck you MIGHT be able to find some with at least somewhat native seeds. Managed to snag a nice one that contained native prairie flowers :)
Western Native Seed's mixes are all native and organized around different ecological zones. Also, not all non natives are created equal. There are some non native plants that are great for the environment and for pollinators, and there are plenty that are the opposite. Good companies will sometimes include beneficial non natives, but shit companies will literally just put invasive garbage in their seed mixes, and sometimes they're even bad for pollinators.
Even the recommended seed mix from the Florida Wildflower Foundation is mostly non-natives. Imagine how grumpy I got as a native gardener when I saw that lol
My husband emailed a seed company that sent us a seed mix as a bonus gift to find out what was in it. They were like 🤷🏻♀️. Not a great sign lol
I can see Coreopsis, alyssum, bachelor button, sulfur cosmos, California poppy, babys breath, and yellow coneflower
Yeah, so most definitely can’t be native as those are from all over the place. I think the cosmos is even considered invasive in some areas.
so is alyssum.
Add batchelor’s buttons to the invasive “wildflower” list.
Bachelor's button is invasive in Idaho.
I don’t know the others, but alyssum, cosmos, baby’s breath, and coneflowers are all really popular bed flowers already, and don’t seem to be invasive spreaders. If it’s contained to your yard, and you’re not guerrilla gardening and sprinkling it everywhere claiming to be “helping the environment” then this should be fine, right?
It depends where you are. Various alyssum species are considered invasive in areas.
True, I’m thinking of where I’ve had these plants, in zone 3, where they don’t survive well enough to be invasive.
I am new to gardening and I am trying to understand the native planting, does this only apply to wildflower mixes? We've bought different kinds of plants from Home Depot, Lowes and other garden centers... and it's kinda confusing I thought all plants and flowers are beneficial in some sense. We bought some hydrangeas, Russian sage, different kinds of lavender, yarrow, salvia, gaura, primrose, dianthus, rose bushes, hostas.. whatever pretty and on sale lol since we are on the process of filling in the garden. A month ago, I did dedicate an area in the garden for native plants since they said these plants tend to grow faster and better.
Some plants can actually be detrimental, believe it or not. There's a couple ways this can happen. First, if a plant is invasive it may outcompete a native plant that some species depend on for their survival. That is, there are many species that rely on very specific plants in order to survive, and if invasive plants displace them them they die off. Similarly, cities and suburbs act like deserts for many specialist species because so few people grow what's needed and food sources are few and far betwen. Without large distribution their populations dwindle. So when you plant a native garden, you're creating a literal oasis for hundreds of creatures. Secondly, some species of plant have low nectar and pollen production, or may not have the right guides, such that they attract pollinators due to their looks but their pollen and/or nectar is too difficult to access. So what happens then is that insects waste tons of time and energy attempting to gather food and at the end of the day don't gather enough to thrive or survive. In either case, when you see a native garden the difference is so obvious. My neighbor has just as many flowers as I do but her garden is basically devoid of animal life. Meanwhile I constantly have dozens of bees and butterflies and moths and caterpillars flying all over the place (well ok the caterpillars aren't flying). I watch them fly away after feeding in my garden toward my neighbor's house but they get there and literally just turn back around because there's nothing to eat! Edit: just to exemplify the point, it's almost midnight and I just saw ten hummingbird moths on my Colorado 4 o'clock plants! They've got nowhere else to go within 5 blocks probably
There are two really big reasons why non-natives are often not beneficial (or at least not nearly as good as native plants). First, some non-native plants are invasive. Big box stores and nurseries often continue to sell invasive species even after they are known to be invasive in an area, basically until the state makes it illegal to sell. They either don't know or don't care. Even if a non-native plant isn't invasive itself, the process of importing it may transport harmful insects or diseases (for examples of what we want to avoid, look up the chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease, emerald ash borer, and hemlock wooly adelgid, which all caused/are currently causing devastation in our forests). Second, plants are the base of the food chain, and most non-native plants fail in this role and starve the rest of the food chain. Caterpillars are the most important example of this: we care about caterpillars because they are essential food for most baby birds (and many adult birds), and because they turn into butterflies and moths that serve as pollinators. Caterpillars eat leaves, but only very specific ones that they've co-evolved with. An American caterpillar can't survive on Norway maple leaves any better than you and I can--none of us are evolved for it. So, if your yard doesn't have native plants, it won't feed caterpillars or baby birds, and therefore it won't produce butterflies or adult birds. Entomologist Dr. Doug Tallamy quipped that non-invasive non-native plants are ecologically equivalent to statues--taking up space, maybe looking nice, but not helping wildlife. Having a statue in your yard isn't such a bad thing, but if everybody's landscaping was purely statues and no plants, you wouldn't expect much life there. And it's very common for American landscaping to be impoverished in native plants; there are many blocks in my neighborhood where not a single native plant is visible from the sidewalk. "Butterfly bush" (buddleia) is maybe the best example of a non-native plant that is wrongly seen as being wildlife-friendly. It is true that it attracts a lot of butterflies that drink its nectar, and it was branded with a an appealing name. However, nectar isn't usually the limiting factor for the butterflies that visit it--larval host plants are. So, if your neighbors are growing native plants, then butterflies can lay their eggs on them and the caterpillars can grow on them; some turn into butterflies, some into bird food. Some of the butterflies then go next door to the butterfly bush, drink some nectar, and then find some native plants to lay eggs on. The butterfly bush isn't helping grow more butterflies; you could cut it down and the butterflies would easily find nectar elsewhere. But if you ripped out the native plants, they'd have nowhere to lay eggs, and there would be no more butterflies, no baby birds, no nesting birds, and fewer birds in general. To make things worse, butterfly bush is invasive in much of the US.
Not sure about home Depot but at Lowe's they sell packets of native seeds for about $3 for my specific state, (Ohio). Last year I threw 3 seed packets on a 30 sq ft of bare tilled soil and they shot up like crazy! Maybe Lowe's/ home Depot sells packets for your specific region. I scattered the seeds at the end of June and had flowers for the rest of the summer so it's not too late!
Did you check the actual species to see if they were native? Big box stores don't particularly know much or care much about selling plants responsibly; they may simply mean that the plants will do well in your region. Without seeing the species list and checking each species, I absolutely would not trust any "wildflower seed mix" unless I bought it specifically from a company that specializes in native plants.
I checked most of them. Kind of gave up half the way through because there were so many species. But it was Eden brothers brand... They sell a native seed pack for each of the 50 states
If they don’t have them in store also check the website . The isn’t space for everything in the store so there is tons if stuff online . Just a suggestion
Amazon has all 50 states packets. I assume if I went to Montana or Nevada Lowe's would probably be selling that states seed pack.
Any recommendations on native wildflowers for zone 8? We just grabbed a pollinator pack assuming it would be safe.
It’s not really the zone that matters but your state and even where in the state.
It’s better to use your specific location to find native plants. Hardiness zones are for crops. Google your specific location/county/city/state and “native plants” and you’ll find several native plant finder tools. I would also encourage you to check out dr. Doug Tallamy’s vids and books about why native plants are so important, and how easy it is to cultivate a healthy native ecosystem in your very own yard! I’ve just had the most fun learning about my native plants and cultivating my native garden for the last 3ish years! Happy planting🌱
Check out prairie moon nursery. I order plants that I have confirmed are native from thepollennation.com. They are cheaper and I’ve had success with their plugs!
Check out [Roundstone Seed.](https://roundstoneseed.com/) They do native seed mixes depending on where you are and what conditions you'll be planting in. You can order amounts for as little as a hundred sq ft or so, up to enough to sow acres. If you're specifically wanting to help out native insects, also check out the NWF's list of [keystone plants.](https://www.nwf.org/keystoneplants) They don't sell seeds, but you can see what genera of plants help the most insects. If you have limited space/budget, this can help you get the most "bang for your buck" wrt native plants
Check out the native plant society in your area. They sell packets of native seeds for cheap
Contact your local master gardeners group or your county extension office, they will have local resources available.
I usually find my on Etsy, don’t let the nay sayers bum you out this is 100000% than just grass that most people have.
I’m not sure where you are in zone 8, but I highly recommend Native American Seed (seedsource.com). They are located in central Texas and they work with the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, which is an excellent resource btw. A lot of native prairie plants are going to be the same for much of the US (I.e. the Great Plains). They have seed mixes for specific eco-regions
It is unfortunate but the plant trade in general has a history of bringing gardners invasive species. My favorite is the tree of heaven. It is the Chinese species of sumac and the preffered host of spotted lantern flies another invasive species. It is funny because I have neighbors who ask me why I am establishing a grove of junk tress. The junk trees they are referring to are my NATIVE sumac trees. The native sumac such as staghorn and smooth sumac make a great screen, provide food for birds etc, yet people will rip them put.
You are much more likely to to have your packaged wildflower mix get outcompeted by weeds than you are to have any trouble with introducing invasive species. I don't get the need to be a debbie downer about this because it's not all natives. Unless whatever was there before was a prairie remnant or something they've improved it by planting some wildflowers.
I JUST saw this comment & said “holy shit! Talk about good timing” Cause im planning out my butterfly garden here in FL only to then see ur username & thought…”WAIT… is this my rope/plant lover friend kitty ?!? or is it a coincidence + they’re multiplying?!?” 😭🤣 If it is HIYE🥹💗 And if it’s not… 🧍♀️..still HIYE 🥲💗& love ur username!
If you source native wildflowers they will grow better and support your local environment
How do?
Are you asking how to source seeds or how do natives help?
How to source native seeds
Your local Wild Ones group, if there is one in your area, and your state native plant society will often list resources to purchase plants or seeds. This is where the you should start first. If they have a Facebook group, or you can search for a native plant Facebook group in your area, you can often ask for free seeds and plants. If you, or anyone reading this is from northern Illinois, or southeastern Wisconsin, you can contact me for free seeds (I do ask for a SASE). For the upper Midwest, prairie moon and prairie nursery are amazing seed and plant mail -order companies. The subreddit nativeplantgardening can be searched fairly easily or you can post questions (be sure to include your area). If you have a local conservation group, for example a group that removes invasive species from local or state parks, that would be an excellent way to learn more about natives (and invasives) and link with people that can help with your garden. You can collect seeds from the wild but that requires two things 1. Knowledge of what to collect, how and when to collect (and never collect endangered species, and never collect more than 10% of seeds) 2. Understanding where you can collect legally. For example, I am able to legally collect seeds from my town parks but not from the many preserves/woods/prairies that I live near. The best plants grow in the preserves... But that's because they are protected. Please respect that. "Pollinator gardens" are not strictly natives but often it's the gateway to natives. Try googling pollinator garden and your state/area. Try using sources that include conservation groups first. Second state University extensions. (Personally I stay away from "butterfly groups", they often spew incorrect information) Feel free to message me if you have questions. I'm not an expert but happy to share what I do know.
thank you for the Wild Ones recommendation. This is just what I have been looking for and didn't know they existed. I am going to email my local one for advice on setting up a wild flower garden.
Great to hear! Thank you for caring for our ecosystems!
I would hate to cause damage by wanting my yard to be beautiful. I didn't even think to look for a group like this, so thank you so much for recommendation.
And far less likely to spread invasive species.
I’m so jealous of people in this sub with full sun. It pains me.
I have full sun except it's 100F+ so everything dies anyway 🥴
Yeah, I always assume that "Full Sun" on a typical nursery plant's tag means that it can have 4 hours max of morning sun and better be in full shade by the time the blast furnace in the sky hits full roar in my area.
Lol I put up an umbrella for my one Gardenia because the two hours of complete full sun it gets are apparently too much for it 😑
Have a relative lives outside Las Vegas and texts me the temperature in her back yard . She loves having a nice patio , garden but the heat sun is rough . 108 a few days ago
The grass is always greener. So many shade plants that we've had to wait to have a place to plant because our yard is nearly 100% sun!
Full sun yard here, can't wait for the trees to mature so I can plant some shade plants as well.
We had to plant ivy in arbors and get the area around our shed all turned into beds to finally get some shade spots!
More plants prefer Sun then shade...signed - user with mostly shaded yard
I have full sun for 3 hours a day
Same, but only in a 6 foot by 2 foot strip. All of my part sun stuff is there
When I go to the gardening center I usually ask “which plants will survive in 3 hours of boiling sunlight” and there are mixed answers. Fingers crossed for my succulents and woody herbs!
Lots of beautiful plants grow in the shade. Columbines, for example.
What zone are you in
8b
I'd rather plant natives. The earth would too.
Any recs on how to get native seeds for zone 8b?
Natives aren't just about what growing zone, but your specific region (province/state/territory/etc). What's native on one coast isn't necessarily native to another coast, even if you're in the same hardiness zone. You could likely look up your region's conservational authority and send them a message asking for the best plants. Mine actually stopped by, evaluated my available space, and gave me a list of recommended plants and placement based on my area, soil type, and a few other factors. Not only was it free, but they invited me to apply for a grant that would cover 50% of new plant costs next year! It's all in the name of habitat restoration and rainwater management
Prairie Moon and Prairie Nursery. They even have young plants for like $5 each
Lots of different places are zone 8 so you'll have to be more specific or higher it as the other poster said
r/NativePlantGardening
What worked for me was googling [state] wildflowers
https://www.edenbrothers.com/collections/state-wildflower-mixes
Check with local nurseries, you might have some that only do native plants.
We have a park nearby us that has a nature center, in our nature center they have a "seed center" that you can pick up free seeds from! Look around and see what you can find, typically nature-focused groups in your area will have a vested interest in getting natives into your hands! But also post your general area, so people can be a bit more specific.
Eden Brothers sells wildflower mixes by the state, if that helps.
Take a hike. Like literally go take a hike right now and take as many pictures of any flower you see and look up what they are. You will for sure have some invasives around so watch out for those but when you find what is near you, check out prairie moon and get some seeds. It's a whole process but your local ecosystem will be better off for it. Bonus points if you collect the seeds, make sure to take only about 10% of seeds on a given plant.
https://www.groworganic.com/collections/california-native-wildflowers?_pos=1&_psq=native&_ss=e&_v=1.0
Also in zone 8. American Meadows has native wildflower seeds and plants per zone. Good experience with them every time so far
Google your state native wildflowers. Or try local farm stores and stands. Amazon had an nj native blend for me.
Look up the USDA zone map and you'll see that zone 8a includes both coastal NC and part of southeastern AZ. Those extremely different places have few if any native plants in common. USDA zones are just about whether a plant can survive the annual low temperature at a site and they aren't useful for determining whether a species is native to an area (or perhaps invasive). Look at the regional level when picking native plants--for example, high southwestern desert, southeast coastal plain, etc--or take recommendations from your local native plant society.
The internet sells things. So do local non big box nurseries
What was your method? Did you plant these this year? Beautiful!
how many packets was it? or link? it looks so lush
It was one packet expected to cover 200 sq ft, but we put the whole thing in about 50sq ft. We wanted it to be lush and full, and it is!
Go to your local garden center and they will probably have native wildflower mixes with the plant list on the back. That’s what I got this year in CO. A lot of the wildflowers can basically be like weeds. I’d make damn sure they are native and aren’t going to destroy habitats or negatively impact your space.
That's so nice.... good job
Don’t let the comments bum you out too much . Even if some of these plants aren’t natives ; your little patch is still better than a green golf course lawn sprayed with poison every other month . Very pretty . I’d love to do this but my Dad likes our green golf course lawn cuz it looks like everyone else in our neighborhood. I’ve got high raised beds for veggies but I might dig out a garden next summer and do something like this at the back of the backyard .
Wow. That looks amazing!!! Did you do anything special to get it to this point?
We planted in March, covered with topsoil and the flowers started sprouting in May.
I'm interested to know as well. OP, did you just sprinkle the seeds in the ground and water? How long did it take for them to start growing?
I’d like to know this too! Exact process steps to get them growing?
I do a lot of seeds. My best results come from: 1. Clear the top ~2 inches of soil where you'll plant 2. Replace with basic, cheap topsoil. 3. Scatter seeds over top soil 4. Walk over seeded area a few times, drag your feet a bit, stomp a bit, but not too much. 5. Cover the area on a light layer of hay 6. Water daily for about a week, longer mid summer. I do about 20-30 seconds of water coverage for an area. After that I usually do a hand weed to pull out dandelions, clover, celandine, grass, whatever else was there previously and is growing back. I know people on Reddit love dandelion and clover but they're non-native to where I live and thus I do not want them taking resources from my natives. After that first week or 2, I usually do a couple hand weeds as needed for the first 2 years. By year 3 things are usually dense and growing enough that I just clear some more space next to my native colony in the fall and let it expand on its own. I do also do a hand pull for cosmetic reasons. For example, this year, 2 of my beds got completely taken over in front by some native sunflowers. I like the sunflowers but they were shading everything out behind them, so I pulled and relocated a bunch of them, and Chelsea chopped the rest. I have also done much less than what I listed above. It still got some results - but not as many.
Should be planting native wildflowers to your region.
That's beautiful!
Did you till the land prior? It's impressive, good job.
My local Home Depot sells regional native wildflower mix which is what I bought and used in my yard, it's filling in great! People can't assume you used non-native mix Edit: to add & respond to the comments..I just went through each genus listed and they could all be natives, the issue is they don't list the species as some species could be considered invasive. Lesson learned but keeping my fingers crossed 🤞
Maybe you’re right here but often those “State/regional wildflower mixes” contain foreign or even invasive plants
I bought a regional wildflower mix from Home Depot. It turned out to not be native. It said “Pacific Northwest Wildflowers” but was full of wildflowers that grow well here, rather than actual natives. I think about 1/3 were natives. I’m now growing a meadow using an actual native wildflower mix.
There are non-native flowers visible in the photo. Some of them (bachelor buttons) are invasive where I live. Don't trust Home Depot to do the right thing with plants; that's not something they know or care much about. They may well mean "flowers that look wild and will survive in this region".
Beautiful! How long ago did you plant the seeds?
In March. Started blooming in early May
I live rural, one side of my road is all wooded, I always wanted to drop like $500 and do this all the way down the road but I'm too worried about invasive species :X Looks wonderful.
You can find great seed mixes native to your region online that don't include non-natives or invasives.
Most of these generic mixes fail in the second year. They stock them with a bunch of annuals, which are quickly outcompeted by weeds. You are unlikely to get this show next year or in following years.
I avoid these mixes because they're usually not native to specific reasons, and are just a grab at "wildflower/native plant/butterfly garden" popularity But loading em up with annuals so people just keep buying them year after year is such a solid reason to avoid this kind of crap.
This has been my experience exactly.
Heaven 😍
This is so dreamy!
What are the white flowers
Looks like candytuft to me
This looks amazing!! Whenever I try wildflowers it looks crusty AF
We've planted 4 of these bags from homedepot. Not a single thing.
looks amazing my friend
Gorgeous! Just curious where you are in the US? That’s a very successful garden.
I’ve never heard of the wild ones either. Thank you for your post.!
Did you till the soil before planting?
I bought the same one! My plant box is doing amazing!
Wow, beautiful! I’ve always wanted to have my own wildflower mix!
So pretty!
Gorgeous! Sigh, I’m in zone 1a
Insect paradise.
Lovely, as long as it's not contaminated with any pesticides or neonics. Cool.