With Earth Day just around the corner, there’s no better way to appreciate our home planet than engaging in some native plant gardening. Native plants are plants indigenous to particular habitats, ecosystems, and regions; in North America, these plants will typically have grown naturally in their home region before European colonization.

Native plants can offer many fantastic benefits for their home environments, including promoting biodiversity; reducing air pollution; providing shelter and food for local wildlife; requiring fewer resources like water, fertilizer, and pesticides to maintain; and making local areas more beautiful.

Here in Tennessee, we are blessed to live in an incredibly biodiverse state, and we can all do our part in helping preserve and protect that biodiversity.

Whether you’re a master gardener or just discovering your green thumb, NPL has many books on native plant gardening for you to enjoy. While you’re here, also be sure to check out the library’s Seed Exchange, which includes a variety of native seeds (subject to availability while supplies last).

Happy native gardening!