Native Plants of Nebraska

So many people ask me how they can know which plants are native, so I want to attempt to help out those of you who are wondering.  First of all, if you count all the recognized hybrids and varieties of native plants in Nebraska, the total number is well over 1550 species.  Some you find only in wetlands, some in forested areas, some in the sandhills, some in the dryer shortgrass prairie of the Nebraska panhandle and some in the tallgrass prairie. (See Nebraska Ecoregions).  We deal mostly with the tallgrass prairie species in Eastern Nebraska and exclusively with native plants.

If it is on our product page, it is native.  In our catalog, you will find just under 200 native prairie wildflowers, grasses, trees and shrubs.  We have just a few plants that can be found in Northern Kansas.

Conservatism (C) values as assigned by Nebraska Natural Heritage Program.  These C values represent the ability of the plants to survive if their natural habitat is disturbed.

The lower the value, the more easily the plants adapt to disturbance, the easier they would be to grow anywhere and the more common they are in the wild.  The higher values represent plants that are typically rare and may not be able to survive if their natural habitat is disturbed.  These plants would be harder to find and harder to grow since they prefer very specific conditions.  Many of these would not be found in the trade at all.

To help you become familiar with native plants and their importance, we will feature a plant or two each week as they begin to bloom in our region.

Plant of the Week!

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