Resources
“So You Want to Self-Radicalize?”
Or: stuff that got me started on my native plant journey and/or is a great beginner resource.
Doug Tallamy. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for his work, in particular his book Nature’s Best Hope. This opened my eyes to the threats facing the entire ecological web, and what a single homeowner can do about it. (Spoiler: it’s his Homegrown National Park project).
iNaturalist.org. iNat allows you to take pictures of plants (or any sort of life!), upload them, get IDs, and engage in citizen science. I even wrote about why it’s the best app for IDing plants. During the pandemic, this sort of thing saved my life.
Learn Your Land, by Adam Haritan. Haritan is located in western PA, but his knowledge and advice is useful wherever you are based. More than individual species, he teaches a “hyperlocal” way of living. He also thinks critically about received wisdom in ecological discourse, examining it more holistically. By design he doesn’t monetize his YouTube channel; all the money he makes for this work comes from the courses he offers on learnyourland.com – on mushroom foraging, tree identification, and (soon) forest ecology. From experience, I can say that the courses are incredibly well produced and well worth the cost.
Native Plant Trust. (Formerly New England Wildflower Society). If you live in Massachusetts, and you haven’t visited their Garden in the Woods in Framingham, do that now!
… okay, wait until they open in April.
Either way, NPT is one of the largest educators on the topic of native plants of New England. They often a ton of courses on native plant botany and horticulture, as well as offering basic and advanced certificates in Native Plant Studies. (It’s where I’m studying now!) Not only that, but they sell their plants both at GitW and at Nasami Farm in Whately, MA, and their Garden Plant Finder is super useful for finding plants that work for the space you have. They also run GoBotany (mentioned below).
Robin Wall Kimmerer. Her book Braiding Sweetgrass has already made me cry, and I’m not even done reading it! Kimmerer is a Potawatomi botanist as well as talented writer who seamlessly blends science with indigenous wisdom.
Native Plant Education
BONAP. Their North American Plant Atlas provides range maps for many, many U.S. plant species, by state and by county. (And with some extension into Canada… don’t blame me for the naming!) The range maps can be hard to parse, though, so be sure to read the key carefully!
Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t. Joey Santore talks like a Chicago mobster, complete with pottymouth – hey, I have one of those, too – but knows more than I can imagine about plants worldwide. How can you not respect a guy who has a metric ruler tattooed on his finger so he can measure things in the field? I too am a fan of killing your lawn and some (light, ethical) unauthorized forestry.
GoBotany. There are many features on this website that I haven’t even explored, but the primary use is to identify the plants of New England. You do need to know how to use a dichotomous key to make the best use of it.
Native Plants, Healthy Planet. A podcast about native plants by Pinelands Nursery of New Jersey. They host interesting guests in the native plant space – they’ve spoken with many of the folks I mention here, including Tallamy, Kimmerer, and Thayer. I also enjoy “The Buzz” episodes where they read and discuss recent news articles in the field.
Native Habitat Project. In addition to a tremendous amount of hands-on ecological restoration work, Kyle Lybarger also does short-form educational videos on TikTok and Instagram about his own native habitat in Alabama.
Where to Buy Seeds/Plants (in New England)
I already mentioned Native Plant Trust, but it’s important to call it out again here, as they sell a wide range of New England natives at both their Garden in the Woods and Nasami Farm location. They have provided the seed plants for some of the plants we sell, including Monarda fistulosa (wild bergamot). For the best selection, start reserving your spring/summer plants in February!
Wild Seed Project. This non-profit based out of Maine is where we source most of our seeds for our nursery, as they offer an ecotype that is more local to us than Prairie Moon. They also run lectures and workshops on the topic of native plants, eg. the one I attended recently, “Seeds of Resilience,” with Mohawk seedkeeper Rowen White.
Prairie Moon Nursery. This nursery is another primary source for our seeds, too. They are based out of Wisconsin, though, so they don’t offer an ecotype local to New England – which may or may not matter to you. Of course, not every species they offer may be native to your area, but they have helpful range maps for determining that. (A much cleaner representation of BONAP’s data, imho).
Blue Stem Natives. This nursery is based out of Norwell, MA, and sells both seeds and plants. I haven’t purchased from them yet, since Norwell is a bit of a hike for me (and their seeds sold out super fast this year!), but I fully intend to next year!
Rob’s Gardens. This backyard nursery in Littleton, MA doesn’t have much of a web presence – the best bet is to email them to join their email list – but it’s nonetheless where I sourced some of the seed plants for RTG. If you’ve got one of our Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly milkweed) plants, the seeds came from their plants. They offer non-native garden and ornamental plants, too, but their native selection is quite good!
The Monarch Gardener. Based (as of 2024) out of Topsfield, MA, they sell seed balls, pollinator yard signs, monarch rearing kits, and more. I haven’t purchased from them yet, but they’ve been super helpful to me on the MA Native Plant Nursery list.
Hudson Valley Seed Co.. Based out of Accord, NY. While they primarily sell garden seeds, they do offer some native species, such as yarrow (Achillea millefolium). In fact, that’s where our yarrow came from! Plus the packet art is FREAKIN’ ADORABLE. It has HEDGEHOGS.
Gardening and Horticulture
I follow a LOT of gardening resources on YouTube and elsewhere, but here are the few I come back to again and again.
Garden Fundamentals. The YouTube of Robert Pavlis, a gardener and (former? current?) chemist. All of his garden knowledge is grounded in science, and he’s written some books on soil science for gardeners. He runs a great website, gardenmyths.com, which I’ve taken to searching whenever I hear of some garden home remedy. (No, epsom salts will not cure blossom end rot, and pissing on your plants isn’t a great way to fertilize them).
Regenerative Gardening. Bree runs Blossom and Branch Farm, a flower farm in Colorado, and her YouTube channel focuses on sustainable – and also science-based – gardening.
r/nativeplantgardening. Some native plant communities can be… exasperating and elitist. Not this one! I’ve found it to be educational and level-headed; when I was questioning if I should continue my mosquito spraying service, they educated me (kindly!) on the dangers of permethrin and what my alternatives were. I even belong to a native plant Zoom group that started from this.
Native Plants for New England Gardens, by Mark Richardson and Dan Jaffe. This is a great guide to many different native species and how to use them in your garden. This was published by Native Plant Trust, who also offer a number of other useful books here.
Foraging
BlackForager. Alexis Nikole Nelson teaches us all about the edible plants of North America – including recipes! – in short-form Instagram/TikTok videos. (Seriously, I’m amazed how much she can pack into 90 seconds!) She also teaches the Botany CrashCourse on YouTube.
Samuel Thayer. Thayer wrote the definitive library on foraging safely in North America, starting with The Forager’s Harvest. His most recent book is Sam Thayer’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants, which I haven’t had a chance to dive into yet!
Featured image: wooden archway at Garden in the Woods, in Framingham, MA; photo by Lise Fracalossi, 2023.