I’m Andrew Walsh, a home gardener who became obsessed with native plants during the pandemic and since then I’ve been replacing invasives in my yard with 40+ native species (so far!)
I started taking pictures of my plants and yard transformation while at the same time learning as much as I could about native plants (thank you Doug Tallamy and many more great authors!) as well as issues like the biodiversity crisis, attracting birds, butterflies, and more, and how to make the biggest ecological impact even in a smaller yard.
At that point I started this website to both document my efforts and hopefully provide inspiration and education for other aspiring native gardeners out there too. My posts include how-to guides for everything involving native gardening; case studies and showcases of successful plantings and projects; and much more.
Some of my top interests include native shrubs and trees, shade gardens, urban landscaping, and using natives in formal as well as more naturalized settings.
As you read this website, you may wonder native to where? Because of course, planting native is an extremely local proposition, and what’s native to me may not be native to you. I’m located in Dayton, Ohio near the confluence of multiple ecoregions within the Eastern Temperate Forests and on land that was historically woodlands, grasslands and even prairie.
Thanks to my location, most of the plants I talk about are native to a wide swath of the midwestern and eastern United States, so gardeners from many parts of the country can benefit. (I also believe that regional or even nationally native plants are still more beneficial from exotics from far across the world.) And finally, many of my posts are more theoretical or conceptual and don’t deal with one specific plant, so those are applicable to anyone.
You can contact me via Instagram where I share even more photos of my garden.