🌿 Getting Started
In the United States — Start with Your Zip Code
Begin with your zip code — this tells the site exactly which native plants are appropriate for your location. Then add what you're looking for after it.
Requirements can be broad categories like wildflowers, trees, or ferns — or more specific, describing a plant's role, size, or conditions:
Example Prompts — USA
- [zip code] wildflowers
- [zip code] wildflowers less than 3 feet high for a pollinator garden
- [zip code] shade-tolerant groundcover for clay soil
- [zip code] caterpillar host plants for a woodland garden
- [zip code] drought-tolerant shrubs for a sunny slope
- [zip code] lawn alternative
- [zip code] keystone plants for a small backyard habitat
- sandy groundcover in [zip code]
- [zip code] shade plants for clay soil not wet
- low-growing natives for a sunny slope in Colorado
- plants that attract monarch butterflies in Kansas
- best oak trees for wildlife in the mid-Atlantic
- pink flowering perennials for a wet meadow in Michigan
- edible native berries for the Pacific Northwest
- fall blooming wildflowers for pollinators in Georgia
- native grasses for a lawn alternative in New Jersey
- drought tolerant shrubs for a Texas Hill Country garden
🌍 Outside the United States
Enter your city and country along with your requirements. The same rules apply — be as specific or as broad as you like.
Example Prompts — International
- Allocasuarina family australia
- native wildflowers for a garden in Edinburgh, Scotland
- shade trees for a small courtyard in Cape Town, South Africa
🦋 Searching by Wildlife
The site tracks associations between plants and wildlife — including caterpillars, native bees, and hummingbirds. You can search by the animals you want to support, not just the plants themselves.
Wildlife-Focused Prompts
- plants that attract monarch butterflies in Kansas
- caterpillar host plants for a woodland garden in Tennessee
- hummingbird plants for a New Mexico garden
If results look wrong or incomplete, use the Help us Improve button that appears after plants load. We can fix the issue and let you know when it's corrected.
🔬 Advanced Search
Family, Genus & Species Search
Search directly by taxonomic family, genus, or species — including full scientific names. The AI recognizes these and sets the correct database filters automatically. You can also combine a taxonomic term with a location or other requirements.
Taxonomic Prompts
- Plants in the sunflower family in Ohio
- Allocasuarina genus australia
- Pyrenula concatervans
A Note on Subspecies
When you search by family or genus, results include all subspecies within that group. However, canonical (parent) species typically contain more complete data — traits, images, native regions, and wildlife associations are more likely to be fully populated there. If a subspecies record looks sparse, check the parent species. Subspecies are excluded from regular searches unless the canonical species isn't available in that state.
How Results Are Ordered
When the AI hand-picks plants for your query, those appear first, followed by additional plants matching whatever botanical filters apply. If the first few results look very specific and later ones broader, that's why — the AI's top picks lead, with filter-matched results filling in behind. After that, plants are sorted by ecological importance, though you can switch to sort by taxonomy.
How Paging Works
Since your query may match hundreds or thousands of plants, the first 60 load immediately. As you scroll down, the next 60 load automatically — and so on until you reach the end. The system may pause a couple of seconds between pages.
📋 Planning & Exporting
- Explore: Use AI search to find your core plant list.
- Select: Check "Enable Export" to build your list and check off the plants you want. The list is saved across searches.
- Download: Click "Export to Excel" to get your full spreadsheet.
🌱 What "Native" Means on This Site
Nativity here is regional — a plant is native if it occurs naturally in your specific state, province, country, or island. Native range data comes from the USDA PLANTS Database for North America, and Plants of the World Online (POWO) for the rest of the world and rare USA plants.
A plant is considered native if it existed in a region prior to European colonization and subsequent globalization. This is partly confirmed by genetic analysis, which can show how long a plant has been in a region and whether it's closely related to plants elsewhere. Being native means the local wildlife has had time to co-evolve with that plant — making it genuinely ecologically beneficial to the local ecosystem.
We do not use USDA Hardiness Zones. Zones tell you whether a plant can survive your winters — not where it actually belongs ecologically. Use your zip code or city instead.