Natives In Harmony

05/27/2026

Our next feature on this wet Wildflower Wednesday could actually be classified as a small shrub!

Yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima) is the only member of its genus and one of the few woody members of the buttercup family. This deciduous plant forms a thicket of suckering stems starting about a foot tall and increasing in height each year up to three feet. Native to forested stream banks and other moist woodland areas in portions of the eastern and southeastern United States, yellowroot is an adaptable ground cover that can help stabilize shaded slopes. It will adapt to a wide range of soil conditions including wet, dry, or clay. It will also adapt to varying sun conditions ranging from full sun to full shade, although it grows and spreads most readily in part shade and moist, acidic, humusy soils. Spread can be controlled with concrete walkways, metal edging, or by siting in a drier location. Unique starry purple or maroon flowers emerge from the stems in early spring before the leaves come out. The foliage is bright glossy green, lacy, and divided. In autumn, yellowroot is at its showiest. The leaves turn yellow, then bright red, fading into tan and persisting into winter. The small seeds are eaten by a variety of wildlife. The roots are indeed a bright yellow and crushing them yields a yellow dye. The roots have been used traditionally to treat various ailments of the digestive and circulatory systems. Deer tend to avoid this plant. Use yellowroot in shaded woodland gardens, under deciduous trees, along shady stream banks or pond margins, and other places where a naturalized ground cover is desired.
Height: 8-30”
Spread: 6-10’
Bloom Time: April
Bloom Color: deep purple/maroon
Sun: full sun to full shade
Water: moist to medium

05/22/2026

05/21/2026

It’s Wildflower Wednesday! This week we are celebrating an easy-to-grow beauty for shadier gardens!

Virginia Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) is the lesser known cousin of Ohio Spiderwort and tends to inhabit more woodland areas and thickets where it can beat the heat in partial to dappled sunlight under the canopy of trees and large shrubs. This clump-forming perennial has a long bloom time from early May until July. The vibrant purple flowers open for one day each, a few from each cluster at a time. The arching, iris-like green foliage stays beautiful throughout the spring and early summer, but begins to decline as hot, dry weather persists. Bumblebees are the most important pollinators of the flowers, but other bees such as honeybees, little carpenter bees, and Halictine bees also visit the flowers. Herbivores browse the foliage occasionally, but it is not a preferred food source probably due to the low severity poisonous characteristics of the sticky sap. Native habitats include fertile woodlands, open woods, moist thickets, hillsides, bluffs, and partially shaded stream banks. Virginia spiderwort can be distinguished from Ohio spiderwort by the hairiness of its slender pedicels, larger bracts subtending the flowers, and tends to be shorter and stouter without the blueish tint to its leaves.
Height: 2-3’
Spread: 1-1.5’
Bloom Time: late spring to mid-summer
Bloom Color: violet to blue
Sun: partial sun to light shade
Water: moist to medium

05/20/2026

Happy World Bee Day! Plant a native plant today and help out our imperiled native bees 🐝🌱

Save the native bees 🐝

05/13/2026

Welcome back to Wildflower Wednesday! Today we’re highlighting a native parent plant to one of our most beloved fruits 🍓

Wild Strawberry (Frageria virginiana) is native to most of the continental United States and is easily grown in a variety of soils and light conditions. It is a cool-season plant that grows actively in the spring and fall, but slows down in the hot summer months. The preference is full to part sun in fertile, well-drained loam or clay-loam, but it will grow in nearly full shade and drier sites. This is one of the parent plants for cultivated hybrid strawberries, the other being from Chile. The fruit is much smaller than commercially grown strawberries and not produced in abundance, but is probably the most delicious of the wild fruits. The flowers of wild strawberry is always white with a yellow center making it easy to distinguish from the non-native yellow-flowered Mock or Indian strawberry. In autumn, the low growing foliage turns shades of maroon and red which adds to its landscape appeal. Wild strawberry spreads easily by runners to form patches of groundcover. New plants can easily be propagated from the runners or dug up and moved to introduce this plant to new areas. The ecological value of wild strawberry is very high. It is a host plant for 71 species of caterpillars including the Isabella Tiger Moth, Crocus Geometer, Grizzled Skipper, Smith’s Dart, Purple-lined Sallow, and Strawberry Leafroller Moth to name a few. Nectar and pollen of the flowers attract numerous bees, flies, small butterflies, and skippers. Birds, mammals, and turtles eat the fruits. Wild strawberry can be used as a groundcover in nearly any landscape including prairies, meadows, wooded areas, roadsides, under trees and shrubs, and large gardens. It acts as a green mulch, inhibiting weeds and reducing the need for wood mulch.
Height: 6-10”
Spread: 1-2’
Bloom Time: May-June
Bloom Color: white
Sun: light shade - full sun
Water: moist - slightly dry

05/06/2026

We’ve made it to Wednesday! That means it’s time for another edition of Wildflower Wednesday! This week we’re highlighting a very small native perennial that is a star ⭐️ in the garden!

Yellow Star Grass (Hypoxis hirsuta) is a small, dainty wildflower in the lily family that dots the landscape with little yellow stars when in bloom. Consisting of a rosette of slender basal leaves and shorter flowering stalks, it is easily overlooked outside of its bloom time from mid-spring to early summer and lasts about 1 month. It prefers full to part sun, moist to slightly dry conditions, and soil containing loam, sand, or rocky material. It can adapt to light shade and dappled sunlight as well. Yellow Star Grass can spread to form loose colonies, but is not aggressive. Habitats include black soil prairies, hill prairie, savannas, open woods and wooded paths, fens, sandstone glades, abandoned fields, and lawns if mowing is delayed until late spring. The flowers primarily attract small bees including little carpenter bees, mason bees, and Halicitine bees. These insects collect pollen for storing and raising larvae. Among mammals, small rodents occasionally eat the corms, otherwise, little is known about this plant’s relationship to other fauna. A nice little addition to the edges of garden beds, pathways, fairy gardens, and rock gardens, it is also a good candidate for native container gardening.
Height: 6-12”
Spread: 6”
Bloom Time: April-June
Bloom Color: yellow
Sun: full to partial
Water: moist-slightly dry

05/05/2026

Save the date! hosts one of the biggest native plant sales of the year! We will be joining and this year for a truly awesome event! This is your one-stop-shop for all the native plants your heart could desire. Get there early because inventory goes fast at this one!! See you there!

04/29/2026

Welcome back to another Wildflower Wednesday! Now, hear us out, you may be thinking right now “why are they highlighting a plant that is literally EVERYWHERE?”, but we willing to bet that a lot of folks don’t know about ALL the amazing traits this little native has!

Today we’re talking about none other than Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia) a frequent inhabitant of garden beds, lawns, parks, along streams, open woodlands, and woodland edges. Highly adaptable, it will grow in all light conditions and nearly any soil aside from very wet or very dry. Only growing about 6” across and 4” tall, it spreads readily in favorable conditions via rhizomes making it an ideal candidate for a native groundcover and green mulch. Common Blue Violet provides an early season nectar source for bees, skippers, and other insects. Arguably its most important feature, though, is playing host to the caterpillars of our native Fritillary butterflies including the Great Spangled Fritillary, Variegated Fritillary, Aphrodite Fritillary, Meadow Fritillary, and Silver-Border Fritillary. Wild Turkeys, Bobwhite Quail, Mourning Doves, and White-Footed Mouse will eat the seeds. Turkey will also eat the leaves and roots of Violet species. The leaves will turn yellowish green when exposed to hot, dry conditions, but will usually resume their dark green color when temperatures cool off and moisture returns. It’s not uncommon for it to bloom again in the early fall. The flowers and young leaves of Common Blue Violet are edible and can be added to salads, garnishes, or made into candies and jellies. Violet leaves are high in vitamins A and C and can be used in salads or cooked like spinach. When foraging for violets to consume, especially in lawn settings, be sure that chemicals or fertilizer hasn’t been applied to the lawn. A great plant to add along walkways, boarders, under shrubs, or just to admire the splotches of purple in the springtime yard!
Height: 4-10”
Spread: 6”
Bloom Time: April-June
Bloom Color: medium to dark violet
Sun: dappled sunlight to full sun
Water: medium-dry to medium-wet

04/27/2026

It’s going to be a busy weekend! We’ve got a couple of different events that we’ll be selling plants at. First, on Saturday May 2nd we’ll be in Twinsburg at the Native Plant Workshop & Sale from 9:00am-4:00pm hosted by the Twinsburg Native Habitat Association! Then catch us in Powell at Nocterra Brewing Company for the annual Plant Swap & Sale from 1-6pm on Sunday May 3rd! Two great events in different parts of the state! Meanwhile, you can still visit us up at our nursery from 10am-5pm Friday-Monday!