What is a native plant?

Native when?  Native where?  These are the two big questions that help define what a person means when they talk about native plants.  The usual definition of “when” is “before Columbus,” implying that native plants were the ones that grew here before the great exchange of plants and seeds that began when the Old World met the New World. But where is “here?”  What an important and tricky question.  Typically when someone in this country says a plant is native, they mean native to North America.  So that’s going to be your broadest definition of native plant: one that was growing on this continent before 1492.

However, more recently people have been putting thought into making the definition of “here” more specific.  “Native to New York State” would be an example of that, yet state borders are drawn by people and don’t have anything to do with environmental commonality.  (How many plants do the Adirondacks and Long Island have in common?) Better to explore the concept of an Ecoregion, which gained in popularity first with scientists, then with plant growers and gardeners as well.  In Westchester County we are part of Ecoregion 59, which stretches up the coast from Long Island to southern Maine.  That means our native plant communities likely have more in common with what grows on Cape Cod than what grows in Buffalo.  To learn more about ecoregions you can visit the map here: https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecoregions  and to find out the native range of a particular native plant you can consult the very useful website  http://bonap.org/  (that stands for Biota of North American Plants) but first you will have to learn the Latin name of the plant you are wondering about.

It is possible to get more specific yet.  There are subregions within the Ecoregions. And some people are saying  those are still too broad – that the only plants native to a particular place are the exact ones that would be growing there now had people not come along and altered the landscape. By this definition, you are not planting native unless you are making an educated effort to restore the original ecosystem of the place where you garden.

For home gardeners, the various definitions of nativity can be confusing.  I think what helps is to get clear about the reasons you want to plant natives.  Are you looking to restore part or all of a property to the way it may have looked and functioned in the past, before the area was developed and before invasive plants arrived in great numbers?  That suggest one kind of approach, and probably a limited palette of plants. Do you want to create a beautiful, biodiverse garden that supports native insects and birds? That suggests a different approach and allows a wider selection of plants. In my own opinion there is not a single right way to plan and plant a garden. Restoring an ecosystem is a worthy cause and so is creating a beautiful flower garden with a mixture of native and non-native plants.

Wild Gardens offers plants that are locally native, and also “native neighbors” from the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Appalachia. This allows our customers to decide for themselves what definition of native they are going to adopt for their own gardening projects.