What to grow instead
The native that does the ornamental's job, and gives more back.
Last updated October 2026
The usual answer at a nursery is a plant from somewhere else. Native swaps start from the job you want done (a lawn, a hedge, a shade tree, a plant “for butterflies”) and name the native that does it at least as well, and usually better for wildlife and water.
Side by side
Each swap compares the two on what actually decides it: water (will it want the hose all summer?), disease, wildlife and upkeep. Where the native only ties, we say so. Where it wins (little bluestem against a Bermuda-grass lawn, milkweed against the butterfly bush a monarch can’t raise its young on), the page shows why.
It's a better choice, freely made, not a scold.
Goes well with
Learn more
- Why a native feeds more than an ornamental — Homegrown National Park
- Find native plants for your area — Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Recent changes
The latest updates to this part of the app, in the same plain notes that go out with each update.
Version 0.41
October 12, 2026- Chinese pistache gets a native stand-in — Texas red oak or flameleaf sumac for the same red autumn.
Version 0.32
September 19, 2026- tap the small picture beside a suggested plant and it opens full size, with the photographer's name and licence — the same viewer the big photographs use.
- 27 more of the garden plants we suggest a native for now have a photograph of their own, instead of a drawing of a generic shrub.
- the plant's name in each suggestion is the link to its page now, in place of the wide button underneath it — so a page of five suggestions is a screenful shorter.
- on a laptop these pages use the width they have. The photograph sits beside the text, and each thing being compared reads across one line instead of three.
- "Photos on iNaturalist" opens the plant's own page there, rather than a list of search results to pick from.
- the list of swaps for one region fills a laptop screen like the full list already did, instead of squeezing into a narrow column down the middle.