In news that shocks no one, central North Carolina has experienced all four seasons in the span of a couple of weeks. It’s pretty typical for this time of year and no one knows that better than the perennials coming out of winter hibernation.

Every year I wait with bated breath to find out what plants made it through the winter. I’ve learned over the past few years that the vast majority of them do, but I still get giddy when I see evidence of their survival.

Oft Repeated Gardening Advice

I’ve engaged with enough gardening content on Threads that the algorithm is feeding me more questions from newbie gardeners.

When I know a thing, my ADHD makes it really hard not to share that knowledge if I think I can be of help. Or maybe it’s the people pleasing and wanting people to like me. Or probably both. Either way, it’s a special interest and I enjoy talking about it with anyone willing to listen.

My speciality, if you could even call it that, is native plants and flowers. My vegetable gardening knowledge is minimal because we don’t do much of it anymore. We plant lettuce and okra in our aquaponics garden and put more effort into adding fruit trees and berry bushes. But I think this advice is pretty widely applicable.

So here’s what I often tell newbie gardeners:

Native plants are the easiest plants to grow

These are the plants that would grow there if your house didn’t exist. Native plants are easy to grow because they WANT to grow there. They evolved to grow there. The hardest part is finding their happy spot. But native plants are also pretty resilient so many can tolerate being moved around until you get it right.

The pictured coral honeysuckle has been moved three times over the past five years and continues to live. I’ve moved plants that needed less sun and plants that needed more sun. I’ve moved plants that needed wetter soil and drowning plants to drier spots. Extremely few have been so unhappy that they straight up died.

Native plants are the set-it-and-forget-it heroes of gardening. Do they need some tending? Sure. Many are aggressive spreaders and will take over the neighborhood if you don’t keep them in check (I’m looking at you, Chickasaw plums).

But you won’t spend hours each weekend babying them (unless you want to. I’m not your mom).

Your state likely has an extension office with a native plant resource.

The NC State Extension Gardner Plant Toolbox is my absolute favorite resource. I use it as a starting point even when I’m looking for plants native to other states.

Shop using scientific names

To avoid grabbing the nonnative variety of a plant, use the scientific name not the common name. Plants have one scientific name but could have several common names. Sometimes the common names for the native variety and the invasive variety are the same.

Example:

Lonicera japonica (invasive)
Chinese Honeysuckle
Gold-and-silver Honeysuckle
Hall’s Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle
Japanese Honeysuckle

Lonicera sempervirens (native)
Coral Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle
Trumpet Honeysuckle
Woodbine

Using scientific names also leads to less confusion overall. Like when this lady on Threads suggested planting bamboo. She was referring to river cane, which is a type of bamboo that’s native to the southeastern US. There’s a drastic ecological difference between native bamboo and invasive bamboo.

A less destructive example is Phlox stolonifera and Phlox subulata, both of which share the common name creeping phlox.

One small spot at a time

Don’t go big. Pick a spot in your yard or on your balcony or patio and make that your project for the season. It’s cheaper and far less overwhelming. Once your plants are established, you can thin them out and use them for future project spots.

This year I’m focusing on rebuilding my rain gardens, my prairie island experiment, and adding some more berry bushes and asters.

That’s it.

Will I impulse buy plants that aren’t part of my focus areas? Absolutely. But the guardrails are there to keep me from going overboard.

Don’t overthink it

Lemme put something into perspective for you.

Plants often end up where they do because a squirrel buried a nut and forgot about it. Or a bird pooped after eating some seeds.

So take a breath and stop thinking so hard about HOW to garden. So when/if it gets all too overwhelming, just go outside. Observe the world around you with curiosity and remember this is how nature has worked since the dawn of time.

Questions? Leave them below!

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