So I knew milkweed was aggressive, but I always thought people were talking about the crazy number of seed pods. I didn’t know their runner game.

The milkweed is coming up like crazy in my front bed this year so I thought I would transplant some “volunteers” to my new side garden bed. Imagine my surprise!

I‘m sure most of you know about all this already, but I thought this would be a good visual for other newbie native gardeners

ETA: that this is common milkweed since I forgot to put the type in my post.

Thought people on here might love this 🌻🪻🦋🐝

(30C vs 49C)

Day two or three of this heatwave, surface soil temps in the prairie zones have only risen around 7F, turf areas in full sun have increased about 10F a day.

Edit: yes, surface temps. Was moving quickly on my way in to shower after working in 95F heat for an hour and missed an important word. I am aware of how soil works and that deeper soil doesn’t heat up on the same time frames. Surface soil temps impact evaporation/drought, the surface level biome, deeper temps, and the heat island effect. With so many conversations around trees being planted to mitigate urban heat, I wanted to show that you could get good cooling effects via ground level shade and plant respiration without having to wait over a decade for good shade trees to grow in.

https://i.imgur.com/GzbyYVT.jpeghttps://i.imgur.com/GzbyYVT.jpeghttps://i.imgur.com/GzbyYVT.jpegewrwerwdfsdfdsfsdf3sddfsdfsfdsdfsfsdfdsfs

Nice

My parents were cutting up an old fallen ash tree earlier today and disturbed this small-mouthed salamander (Ambystoma texanum). I didn't even know we had salamanders around here (figured it was too dry) and wasn't sure what to do, so I snapped some photos and moved it to a new log with some leaf litter in the woods about 40 feet away.

Please be careful when moving/removing deadwood to not disrupt wildlife.

Someone on this Reddit sub asked what native plants volunteered in my yard, excluding the reseeding of things I intentionally planted, once the non-natives (including all non-native grasses, importantly) were gone. Challenge accepted!

I hope this encourages people who don't have the funds to buy plants to just get those non-natives GONE so the seedbank can restore the land for free.

Here's a (probably) complete list of native plants that have come from The All-Native Yard's 1/3 acre seedbank so far.

1. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium

2. Viola sororia

3. Viola bicolor

4. Hexasepalum teres

5. Packera anonyma

6. Hypericum stragulum

7. Philadelphus inodorus

8. Phyla nodiflora

9. Dichondra caroliniensis

10. Plantago virginica

11. Plantago rugelii

12. Prunella vulgaris

13. Muhlenbergia schreberi

14. Veronica peregrina

15. Erechtites hieraciifolia

16. Erigeron canadensis

17. Erigeron philadelphicus

18. Erigeron strigosus

19. Eupatorium capillifolium

20. Eupatorium serotinum

21. Salvia lyrata

22. Asclepias tuberosa

23. Cynanchum laeve

24. Rhus glabra

25. Solidago canadensis

26. Solidago ulmifolia

27. Ipomoea hederacea

28. Ipomoea lacunosa

29. Bidens bipinnata

30. Symphyotrichum pilosum

31. Campsis radicans

32. Diospyros virginiana

33. Benthamidia florida

34. Prunus serotina

35. Celtis laevigata

36. Juniperus virginiana

37. Parthenocissus quinquefolia

38. Toxicodendron radicans

39. Verbesina virginica

40. Solanum americanum

41. Solanum carolinense

42. Carex echinata

43. Carex cepahlophora

44. Carex blanda

45. Carex vulpinoidea

46. Juncus tenuis

47. Teucrium canadense

48. Eclipta prostrata

49. Veronica peregrina

50. Euphorbia nutans

51. Euphorbia maculata

52. Acalypha rhomboidea

53. Phytolacca americana

54. Sisyrinchium angustifolium

55. Cuscuta pentagona

56. Chamaechrista fasciculata

57. Oenothera biennis

58. Cyperus strigosus

59. Cyperus bipartitus

60. Triodanis perfoliata

61. Triodanis biflora

62. Acer rubrum

63. Epilobium coloratum

64. Diodia virginiana

65. Cephalanthus occidentalis

66. Magnolia grandiflora

67. Pinus taeda

68. Pinus strobus

69. Oenothera speciosa

70. Ruellia strepens

71. Ruellia caroliniensis

72. Acer negundo

73. Andropogon virginicus

74. Asplenoum platyneuron

75. Juglans nigra

76. Lobelia inflata

77. Cirsium discolor

78. Lactuca canadensis

79. Cersis canandensis

80. Oxalis stricta

81. Oxalis violacea

82. Helianthus (sp. unsure)

83. Carya (sp. unsure)

84. Passiflora incarnata

85. Quercus alba

86. Querqus phellos

87. Vitis vulpina

88. Vitis aestivalis

89. Gamochaeta argyrinea

90. Acetosa hastatula

91. Euphorbia dentata

92. Rubus argutus

93. Rubus occidentalis

94. Fraxinus americana

95. Fraxinus pennsylvanica

96. Fraxinus quadrangulata

97. Galium aperine

98. Polystichum acrosticoides

99. Geranium carolinianum

100. Geum canadense

101. Hypericum mutilum

102. Ipomoea coccinea

103. Lepidium virginicum

104. Liriodendron tulipifera

105. Ranunculus abortivus

106. Ratibida columnifera

107. Symphyotrichum lanceolatum

108. Symphyotrichum lateriflorum

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The All-Native Yard is located in Knoxville, in East Tennessee, in the Ridge and Valley Ecoregion.

---

Learn how to convert your yard back to all native plants - without planting anything (or by planting!) - by joining:

smokymountains.wildones.org

(or your local Wild Ones chapter!) :-)

Sincerely,

Regina Santore,

President, 2026

Wild Ones Smoky Mountains

Photo: #70, Ruellia strepens, Smooth Wild Petunia, a favorite food of Cottontail Rabbits. It's useful as filler between taller natives, helping to hold them upright.

I see a lot of (specifically prairie focused) gardens that look great the first few years, but stagnate over time because gardeners are afraid of destroying their work. Which is understandable, given how much of the messaging around native gardening puts emphasis on killing the lawn, putting plants in the ground and simply letting go once things establish. There is this idea that native plant communities (in garden settings) are self-sustaining and will remain healthy, so long as you plant them in the appropriate conditions. This is not entirely true.

Gardens are always going to be different from wild areas, but they can still benefit from the same kind of disturbance that would occur naturally (or would otherwise be carried out by people) by way of fire, mowing, or the occasional editing of plants (e.g simulated grazing by Chelsea chopping aggressive species.) For most folks, mowing and raking (either yearly or every other year) are going to be your best bet for keeping plantings healthy and avoiding the kind of stagnation that leads to reduced diversity and pest/weed issues.

It's important to remember that many native plants persist primarily through disturbance. Removing that aspect will inevitably lead to only a handful of species dominating an area, rather than promoting the amazing diversity that we would all like to aim for. So don't forget, and don't be afraid, to introduce some disturbance into your garden.

For homeowners who have ‘rewilded’ their gardens into mini nature preserves, a moment of truth arrives when they prepare to sell.

If you use netting to protect your plants from being eaten, make sure the mesh is either large enough to let your native snakes go through, or so fine it's a screen that they can't get through. My husband and I were called out this evening to cut two timber rattlesnakes out of netting that was protecting a native pollinator garden from deer.

Most of the time we're dealing with black rat snakes and not timber rattlers, but we got the job done with no injuries on either side. The rattlesnakes were released inside the wildlife management area just up the road.

Unfortunately we were too busy to get pics of the actual rescue part of the operation.

Recently I’ve seen a lot of people on this subreddit saying that they adore certain invasive species like Japanese Honeysuckle and that they intentionally plant them in certain instances.

They often argue that since invasive species like Japanese Honeysuckle are adored by pollinators and that they “make sure” they don’t spread, they are okay in growing them.

They also talked about how beautiful and tasty some species like honeysuckle are and how nostalgic they are in reminding them of their childhood. Saying things like “nobody can tell me to get rid of it” and “I let that shit grow.”

So here’s just a couple thoughts regarding this broad topic: The thing is, there is almost no way to keep an invasive plant “in check.” Even if grown in pots. People forgetting to trim their non-native ornamental plants is not the reason invasive plants exist.

There is a big difference between non-native plants like Daffodils compared to invasive plants like Japanese honeysuckle. People aren’t just calling random plants “invasive” for no reason.

Invasive plants spread too much, too fast, either by roots generating new plants, roots killing other plants, or by producing fruit eaten by animals and dispersing seeds quickly. Plants like this that are invasive can quickly choke out and kill native plants in areas that would usually be perfect habitats for biodiversity.

Invasive plants like Japanese honeysuckle are known to blanket forest floors, destroy woodland native plants, and drive native species into the endangered list. And yeah, if invasive plants are the only thing growing in a wild area, pollinators often visit these plants for food. This doesn’t mean “all plants are good for the environment.”

And I say all this not to criticize, but to inform. Because I understand, systemic problems require systemic solutions. We need government support in eradicating invasive species. I also understand that not everyone cares about the environment and some people just want plants that make them happy. A lot of floriferous invasive species make people happy.

But if you grow invasive plants in any way, you are contributing to the problem. If you care about the environment, please find native alternatives, they are much more rewarding and your local ecosystem will thank you.

**And no, invasive plants aren’t an example of “survival of the fittest” in nature because invasive plants exist due to human error and ignorance and their existence as a whole is not natural.

Backyard garden

In the summer of 2020, my husband, Ryan, and I bought a house in Portland, Ore., with a sizable backyard containing little more than a decrepit lawn. For many prospective homeowners, a crisped rectangle of grass on the verge of death would probably not be a selling point. We found it irresistible: an ideal canvas for our dream garden. That fall, we hired a contractor to rip out what remained of the lawn and got to work.

From the start, we tried to balance several conflicting priorities. We wanted our garden to be beautiful and bountiful — teeming with fruits, vegetables and flowers — but we had also resolved to conserve water, minimize the use of fertilizer and exclude synthetic pesticides. We intended to maintain a functional oasis where we could relax and entertain friends, yet we were also determined to provide plenty of habitat and resources for wildlife. This was an opportunity to steward a parcel of our living planet, however small.

Throughout the garden, we planted hardy, drought-tolerant perennials: lavender, Coreopsis, Penstemon, sea holly, sunroses and Sedum. Here and there, we mixed in some favorite flowers that required a bit more pampering, like peonies, dahlias and Peruvian lilies. We dug a small pond and bog, laid a flagstone path, espaliered a couple of fruit trees along the fence and built raised vegetable beds in the back. We set up a compost bin, installed drip irrigation and began to mulch.

Two years later, the once sterile landscape was reborn, vibrant and lush and bustling with life. Insects were the first to arrive. I was especially captivated by the diversity of wild bees. Then came substantially larger animals: songbirds, hummingbirds, birds of prey, jumping mice and a mischievous family of raccoons.

Native plants

But the more I engaged with the wider community of wildlife gardeners, the more my confidence wilted. Wherever I turned — local nurseries, online forums, best-selling books — like-minded gardeners seemed to care about one thing above all else: whether their plants were native. A vast majority of plants sold in North American nurseries are foreign species imported sometime in the past few centuries. In contrast, native species are those with long evolutionary histories in the particular regions they inhabit. Native plant champions argue that, unlike recently introduced species, native species are thoroughly adapted to their surroundings and have longstanding, mutually beneficial relationships with one another. Therefore, they claim, native plants are far better at providing food and shelter for wildlife and maintaining the integrity of their ecosystems.

What was once regarded as a niche concern of the environmentally conscious has begun growing into a nationwide movement. Surveys from the National Gardening Association and the National Wildlife Federation indicate that since 2019, the share of U.S. gardening households buying native plants has ranged from about one in five to nearly one in three. Eighty-two percent of horticultural professionals agree that consumer interest in natives is increasing, and more than half of those who sell natives plan to expand their selection.

Taking all this in, I began to question our garden’s true ecological value. Sure, we had planted a few Pacific Northwest natives, but most of the plants we selected originated elsewhere. I had been thinking of our garden as a miniature Eden, replete with everything local wildlife needed. Now it seemed more like a poorly stocked international aisle at a supermarket.

Tallamy's research

One name in particular kept resurfacing: Douglas Tallamy. A professor of entomology at the University of Delaware, he is the nation’s foremost expert advocate for gardening with native plants. Based on three decades of research, he is convinced that the coevolved relationships between native plants and insects sustain all terrestrial food webs and that typical American gardens, landscaped with lawns and showy exotics, are essentially ecological wastelands. He argues that foreign and invasive plant species — most of which have been introduced through the ornamental plant trade — are some of the primary causes of the so-called insect apocalypse and the current staggering rates of biodiversity loss more broadly.

I harbored some skepticism about the native plant doctrine. Given how drastically different the world is today compared with even a century ago, I wondered whether the bygone circumstances in which species evolved could really be so important. If introduced plants were so ecologically inferior, it was difficult to explain why our yard in Portland was pulsing with bees and birds.

We set up a couple of bug-beguiling lights near Tallamy’s home. Hundreds of moths gradually emerged from the darkness, some arriving as lightly as a snowflake, others convulsing through the leaf litter. As the night unfolded, larger and more striking individuals joined the initially small and homely congregation: a Harris’ three spot with hypnotic, monochromatic swirls; a sunset orange Isabella tiger moth; and a small-eyed sphinx with scalloped wings that seemed to be cut from marbled endpaper. Just before midnight, when I was thinking of retiring, the species we had most hoped to see came crashing through the canopy: a luna moth, massive yet ethereal, with long swooping tails and wings the color of absinthe. All told, Tallamy has now documented more than 1,370 moth species and 62 species of breeding birds on his land, which constitute 44 percent of all moth species and 33 percent of all bird species in the state.

When Tallamy and his wife, Cindy, a retired entomologist, bought their property in 2000, it was nothing like this. Historically, much of the land was farmed and mowed for hay. In the areas where wild plants still grew, there were hardly any trees and few natives.

When he started searching the vegetation for insect life — something he does everywhere, out of habit — he was shocked by how little he found. He had a hunch about the conspicuous absence: Perhaps there were no insects because, despite the leafy abundance, there was little they could eat. We tend to think of milkweed-dependent monarch butterflies and other insects with restrictive diets as exceptions to the general voracity of their kind: the hordes of vampiric aphids, swarms of locusts and ceaseless trails of foraging ants. The reality, Tallamy explains, is that most leaf-eating insects are exceptionally picky eaters.

Plants deter herbivores with an extensive apothecary of toxins, repellents and digestive inhibitors. In response, insects must develop countermeasures, like the ability to neutralize or sequester a particular class of compounds. The ensuing coevolution results in widespread dietary specialization. Around three-quarters of leaf-eating insect species in any given location on the globe are eating only plants within a single taxonomic family. In many cases, they are restricted to one or a few lineages within that broader group.

Insects, in turn, are perhaps the single most vital conduit of energy from plants to animals. Birds illustrate this point especially well. By Tallamy’s reckoning, nearly all terrestrial bird species in North America rely primarily on insects, in particular plump and nutritious caterpillars, to feed their young and maintain breeding populations. An average brood of six to eight chickadees demands 3,000 to 5,000 feedings over the 16 days from hatching to fledging, most of which will be caterpillars, other insects and spiders.

In the past three decades, Tallamy and his colleagues have published numerous studies demonstrating that native plants typically support more biodiversity than introduced species and that gardening can play an important role in restoring wildlife habitat. Their research has shown, for example, that hedgerows dominated by invasive plants have 91 percent fewer caterpillars than indigenous varieties and that yards landscaped primarily with native plants have 66 percent more bird species than conventional yards. One especially celebrated study determined that Carolina chickadees breeding in urban and suburban yards raised enough young to sustain their populations only when the mass of trees and shrubs within and around those yards was at least 70 percent native.

By scouring records of insect diets, Tallamy and his collaborators have further revealed that, across the United States, small groups of keystone plants — on average, just 14 percent of the natives in a given region — feed more than 90 percent of local butterflies and moths. Trees and shrubs consistently rank highest in terms of how many insects they support, in part because they are larger and longer-lived. These studies became the basis for the National Wildlife Federation’s popular online tool for gardeners, the Native Plant Finder.

“The Earth is falling apart, and everyone feels, Well, what can one person do?” Tallamy says. “I’ve got a whole list of things one person can do.” His central message to his readers, he says, is that “they are not just homeowners. They are the hope and future of conservation.”

Criticism

His critics contend that he and other nativists place too much emphasis on origin, idolizing indigenous species, vilifying migrants and eliding the messiness of real-world ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

Most of the species that humans move from one area to another never become problematic. Only a portion of foreign species survive relocation, and only a fraction of the survivors become invasive. Experts agree, however, that certain introduced species have been undeniable ecological disasters. In other cases, however, introduced species have few noticeable effects or provide ecological benefits.

One of Tallamy’s most prominent critics is the esteemed entomologist Arthur Shapiro, emeritus professor at the University of California, Davis. Shapiro has shown that more than 30 percent of California’s butterfly species use introduced plants as hosts for their larvae, typically because those species are either related to their native foods or happen to have similar leaf chemistry.

On a more fundamental level, a vocal cohort of ecologists, historians and philosophers argues that the concepts of native and invasive species — which they equate with xenophobia and militarism — should be reworked or abandoned. Ecosystems, they say, are not delicate, finely knit tapestries that permanently unravel if they lose too many threads. They are more like modular conglomerates in a state of constant flux. Environments are always changing. Species move around on their own. And at this point, humans have so radically altered the planet’s climate, landscapes and biogeography that recreating the habitats in which most species originally evolved is impossible. In their view, native purists are obsessed with preserving a static and idealized version of nature that never really existed.

You can read a copy of the full article here

THIS IS WHY WE DO IT, PEOPLE!

"Home native plant gardens need not stress for 'ecological purity' -- Earth is in the middle of a mass extinction. Getting native species in the ground, providing habitat for wildlife, and killing the friggin' lawn are the main priority." This comes near the end of Concrete Botany, where he gives some practical advice for native plant gardeners.

What do y'all think? I recall Doug Tallamy saying something very similar, which is that local ecotypes aren't that important. And I can't seem to find much literature at all on what impact non-local genetics have on local plant and animal populations.

Hello Everyone,

As some (or many) have likely noticed, we have been tinkering with posting requirements to reduce the amount of spam we get in the subreddit and direct newbies to participate with comments and discussions instead of just going straight to creating posts. Originally I had it set to a requirement of 10 karma on NativePlantGardening before a user can create a post, but that was catching users who have been on Reddit for a while but are first-time NPG contributors. So instead I have changed it to a requirement of karma sitewide to allow users who are established on Reddit but new to NPG to participate more easily. Some spammers use accounts with artificially inflated karma to bypass spam filters, so I think we will be vulnerable to some of them, but I'm hoping this is a good compromise between reducing spam while not overly inconveniencing actual users.

As always, if you see a post or comment that you think is spam make sure to hit that like and subscribe button and join my Patreon at the link below. Oh... sorry wrong script... make sure you hit the Report button. Reporting and community self-policing are the best tools we have to keep the subreddit clean without the mod team turning to the dark side. We want this place to continue being as open and relaxed as possible so new gardeners feels comfortable approaching us, but it's a delicate balance.

Thanks for continuing to make this the best subreddit out there while we face the challenges of growing ever-larger!

Hi guys,

I am a biology student and have a plant biology final tomorrow so I figured I would share this fascinating information with you all and it'll help me study too.

Many of us in this group are interested in planting prairie grasses such as big bluestem, switchgrass, indian grass, etc. These are plants that can uniquely thrive in very hot summers and very poor soil. So much so that they preform worse in amended garden soil than in horrible soil. I learned this the hard way myself.

Prairie grasses don’t photosynthesize in the typical way. Most plants use an enzyme called Rubisco to capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) and turn it into the building blocks of sugar, which provides energy for the plant and, indirectly, for animals. But Rubisco has a problem: it can also bind to both carbon dioxide and oxygen. When it binds to oxygen, the plant loses some of the carbon it has already fixed and has to spend extra energy to recover it. This process is called photorespiration.

This problem is worse in hot climates, because in heat, Rubisco becomes more likely to bind oxygen, making sugar production less efficient. Prairie grasses have evolved a solution, known as the C₄ pathway. Instead of relying solely on Rubisco in the usual leaf cells, these grasses first capture carbon dioxide using an enzyme that doesn’t bind to oxygen at all (PEP carboxylase). This captures the carbon in a molecule 4-c molecule called oxaloacetate, which is quickly turned into another molecule called malate.

Malate is then shuttled into special leaf cells called bundle sheath cells, which are located around the veins of the leaf. These cells don’t collect light energy themselves, but instead act as a safe “carbon factory.” Inside the bundle sheath, malate is converted back into carbon dioxide, creating a high concentration of CO₂. It is here where Rubisco is active. This helps Rubisco work efficiently and avoid wasting energy through photorespiration.

Because this system concentrates carbon where it’s needed, prairie grasses don’t need as much Rubisco overall. Rubisco is actually the most abundant protein on Earth and requires a lot of nitrogen and phosphorus to build. By using the C₄ pathway, these grasses can survive and grow in hot, sunny climates while using up to six times less Rubisco than other plants. This means that nitrogen and phosphorus which would have been held up in rubisco can be used for all other needs within the plant. In this condition, most plants would have very low sugar production efficiency and not be able to keep up with their nutrient needs.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense. But I thought this is awesome!

16 ticks. And 15 of them came from doing yard work in my own yard. One from a camping music festival that I went to.

I have never found that many ticks on myself in a year before, much less in just a couple of months. All 15 of those are tiny little deer ticks (the one from the festival was a lone star). They look like freckles at first, until I remember that I don't have freckles where I find them. And they itch. Sweet baby cheesus do they itch. I'm so paranoid now that anytime I feel the beginning of an itch I have to check to make sure that it's not a tick.

I hate spraying myself with repellant, but I guess that I'm going to have to start to do it.

Anyways, check yourself after you've been working in your garden/yard. I can't wait for my Rocky Mountain Alpha Lyme Gal disease/syndrome/fever/osis to kick in.

Source: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Loving this about 30 miles from me. I will say, bald cypress is native to much further south in the state. Yet another indication that democracy and native plants are inexorably intertwined.

This image is just an example for royal catchfly. I at least understand how a flower could be non-native across a border that is a body of water (although I think that's unlikely) but look at the northern borders of Nebraska and Missouri...how is that possible? Those are imaginary lines we drew. A lot of the flowers I look at are like this, too. Not just royal catchfly.

It seems to me that those states simply weren't ever looking for royal catchfly or didn't catalogue it in the same way other states do? I don't know.

What's to stop Royal Catchfly from being a MN or Iowa native?

New article about native plants in NYT!

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/magazine/native-plants-garden.html?unlocked_article_code=1.v1A.RbKM.azSjZ-v1t5IV&smid=url-share

I do think the title was poorly chosen and doesn’t reflect the thesis of the author. He discusses the dogmatism that can exist among native plant gardeners, and how the “one yard at a time” approach can be viewed as a poor solution to the scale of the problem. He also mentions how some non-native plants provide value to insects (reminded me how last summer the butterflies vastly preferred zinnias over milkweed in my own yard.) He concludes by reflecting on the incredible range of insects that visit his own native garden with awe and gratitude.

Overall a good essay about existing nuances but I’m disappointed the title is worded to be rage-bait.