Visit our native area and imagine yourself surrounded by grasses, tall plants, and attractive flowers that bring birds, bees, and butterflies to your property.
Note: You will find the germination instructions in each description. These instructions correspond with a letter (A, B, C, etc). You can find specific instructions below:
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Sweet Black Eyed Susan
$1.00Add to cartBlack-eyed Susan and Brown-eyed Susan are biennial or short-lived but Sweet Black-eyed Susan will persist for many years. A very tough prairie plant, it is able to withstand high winds and tough soils.
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Dense Blazing Star
$1.00Add to cartThe most moisture-tolerant of Liatris species, this Blazing Star does equally well in sunny, well-drained garden sites. For about three weeks in mid- to late summer, it sports purple wands of stemless, crowded flowers, facing all directions and blossoming from the top of the stem down. -
Wild Bergamot
$1.00Add to cartWe love Wild Bergamot because it can be planted in spring, on bare soil, and will germinate without overwintering; it does not need stratification. Monarda fistulosa, also commonly called Bee Balm or Horse-Mint, has a lovely lavender blossom and distinctively aromatic foliage.
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Joe Pye Weed
$1.00Add to cartJoe Pye Weed is a very tall plant, up to 6′ in the best sun/soil conditions, but strong stems support the flowering plant so it rarely needs to be staked
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Prarie Dropseed
$1.00Add to cartWhen planning your garden, it is very easy to get caught up in the beauty and splendor of bold and colorful flowers. However, one must not forget about that massive family of flowering plants, the grasses. A great choice of grass for your native landscape is Prairie Dropseed, also called Northern Dropseed.
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Cardinal Flower
$1.00Add to cartCardinal Flower is named for its beautiful scarlet red flowers which are an important nectar source for hummingbirds and swallowtail butterflies. Lobelias produce a secondary compound known as “lobeline,” which deters herbivores. The flowering spikes open from the bottom to the top and bloom for several weeks.
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Ohio Spiderwort
$1.00Add to cartIts unusual blue-green soft foliage and tendency to bloom in the morning sun and close from mid-day heat make this an attractive addition wherever it is found. A stand of Spiderworts can be in bloom from May through July due to this afternoon closing habit. Foliage becomes stressed and yellow/brown after bloom so it can be cut back after seeding. It grows very well in part shade but blooms may be less.
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Common Milkweed
$1.00Add to cartCommon Milkweed is one of the easiest and fastest to establish of the Milkweeds and planting more, even in small urban pockets, can provide personal satisfaction while helping to counter increasing threats to our Monarch butterfly population.
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Mountain Mint
$1.00Add to cartMountain Mint attracts many insects to its flowers, including various bees, wasps, flies, small butterflies, and beetles. The leaves are very fragrant; when crushed they have a strong minty odor. The flowers will be white to shades of light purple, some with purple spots.
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Indian Grass
$1.00Add to cartIndian Grass is one of the first warm season grasses to form seeds and they are rich clusters of bronze colored seed. Golden stems and large seed heads provide ample color and texture to plantings and birds will enjoy the seeds come fall.
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Golden Alexanders
$1.00Add to cartZizia aurea is one of those natives that every garden should have. It is fairly easy to grow and, although short-lived, will self-seed and persist in many sun/soil situations. Zizia is an important plant to a number of short-tongued insects that are able to easily reach the nectar in the small yellow flowers. Black Swallowtail and Ozark Swallowtails caterpillars will feed on its leaves.
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Butterfly Weed
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Swamp Rose Mallow
$1.00Add to cartA large, attractive plant suited for sunny, moist, even wet and slightly acidic sites. Multiple stems will come from a single plant on this shrub-like perennial forb. The large leaves are dark gray-green, and hairy on the underside.
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Sky Blue Aster
$1.00Add to cartSky Blue Aster has blue to blue-violet flowers. It is easy to grow and is drought tolerant. Blooming late summer to fall, like most Asters, it attracts butterflies and other beneficial insects such as small bees, flies, small to medium-sized butterflies, skippers, and wasps.
Sky Blue Aster prefers full or partial sun and can grow in many different types of soil as long as it is well-drained. The leaves are smaller when heading upward along the stem, and are typically heart-shaped at the base. The leaves on the very similar-looking Smooth Blue Aster are indeed smooth to the touch. Sky Blue Aster has rough leaves, as do many other Asters. It is also scientifically named Aster oolentangiensisand Aster azureus.
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Columbine
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Lemon Mint
$1.00Add to cartLemon Mint is a well-known native. In Northern climates this plant acts as an annual, but in Southern climates its lifecycle is biennial or short-lived perennial. The bright blooms range from lilac to magenta in color and will attract bees, butterflies, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and even moths, but deer and rabbits dislike and commonly avoid its especially fragrant foliage.
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Bush’s Poppy Mallow
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Spotted Bee Balm
$1.00Add to cartSpotted Bee Balm (also called Dotted Mint or Dotted Horsemint) prefers sandy soils and full to part sun. Spotted Bee Balm is more drought tolerant of drought and sun than many other Monarda species. This plant is usually found in sand prairies, hill prairies, and Oak savannas.It is an eccentric beauty in form and color with complex blossoms topping 2’ stems in hues of pinkish-purple, green, beige, and maroon. These blossoms attract honeybees, bumblebees, and many butterflies, including Karner Blue butterfly. Spotted Bee Balm is also one of the host plants for the Raspberry pyrausta butterfly. The scent of this plant is repugnant to mammalian herbivores so is rarely consumed by them. -
Lance-leaf Coreopsis
$1.00Add to cartLance-leaf Coreopsis waves brightly in late spring and early summer on sunny, even hot sites with dry, sandy or poor soil. The bright yellow, daisy-like flowers are about 1 1/2″ in diameter and bloom singly on long stems. Promptly dead-head spent blossoms to prolong the bloom period. The ray petals have four deep lobes on their margins. This species also is commonly called Sand Coreopsis, or Tickseed because many think the seed looks like Ticks.
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Pale Corydalis
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White Prairie Clover
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Small Yellow Wild Indigo
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Spider Milkweed
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Partridge Pea
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Purple Love Grass
$1.00Add to cartPurple Love Grass is a perennial, warm season grass that grows actively during the summer when soil temperatures are warm. It reaches heights of 1-2 feet even in the driest, poorest of soils. It thrives in full sun and sandy sites – even roadsides that receive winter road salt. Purple Love Grass can also grow under Black Walnut trees where other plants fail.
The seed heads (or florets) bloom mid-summer in shades of light to bright purple, giving an overall purple haze to the landscape. This tough ornamental grass is an absolutely stunning addition to any rock garden or drier landscape.
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Wild Senna
$1.00Add to cartWild Senna, and other Cassia and Senna species in the Fabaceae (pea) family, are important host plants for many species of Sulphur Butterflies.
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Plains Oval Sedge
$1.00Add to cartPlains Oval Sedge is a hardy, versatile plant that can grow in a variety of conditions. It is most commonly found in dry, disturbed areas, but it can also adapt to wetlands and seasonally flooded sites such as swamps and floodplains.The fruiting stage of of Plains Oval Sedge displays prickly oval spikes that become an attractive golden brown in the fall. Coupled with its short stature, and mounded profile, it makes an excellent addition to a landscape. Also called Shortbeak Sedge, Plains Oval Sedge actively grows during the spring and fall when soil temperatures are cool, like most sedges (cool-season growers).This sedge is drought tolerant and can tolerate controlled burns. It is also resistant to deer and rabbits. -
Tall Tumbleweed
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