Pollinators & monarchs
Where to learn what to plant for bees, butterflies, and monarchs — and how to keep them safe.
- Xerces Society The leading invertebrate-conservation nonprofit. Region-by-region pollinator-plant lists and habitat guides.
- Pollinator Partnership — Ecoregional Planting Guides Enter your ZIP to get a planting guide tuned to your ecoregion.
- Monarch Watch Monarch science, tagging, and the Bring Back the Monarchs milkweed program (often free milkweed plugs).
- Xerces — Milkweed Finder Find milkweed species native to your area — the only food monarch caterpillars can eat.
- Bee City USA Community-level pollinator commitments; see if your town participates.
Native plants
Native plants support far more wildlife than exotics. Find what belongs where you live.
- NWF Native Plant Finder Enter your ZIP for native plants ranked by how many butterflies & moths they host (Tallamy data).
- Homegrown National Park Doug Tallamy's movement to rebuild biodiversity by planting natives at home.
- Audubon Native Plants Database Native plants for birds, searchable by ZIP.
- USDA PLANTS Database The public-domain authority on U.S. plant distribution, nativity, and characteristics (a source for this site).
- USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map Look up your zone — the basis of this site's “hardy here” verdict.
Permaculture & regenerative growing
Designing food systems that build soil, hold water, and need less input over time.
- Plants For A Future (PFAF) Deep database of edible & useful plants and their permaculture functions. (We link out — their data is non-commercially licensed.)
- USDA SARE — Sustainable Agriculture Practical, research-backed guides on cover crops, soil health, and sustainable practice.
- NRCS — Soil Health Cover crops, no-till, and building living soil, from the USDA conservation service.
Responsible gardening
Avoid the plants that escape and cause harm — the ones nurseries don't always flag.
- USDA / state invasive & noxious lists Per-state invasive and legally-noxious designations (surfaced on this site as the ⚠️ invasive warning).
- US Register of Introduced & Invasive Species USGS, public domain — the national register of introduced and invasive species.
- PlayCleanGo / national invasive resources How to spot, report, and avoid spreading invasive plants.
Links only — we credit and send you to the source rather than re-hosting their work. Plant data on this site comes from open sources (USDA, GBIF, Wikipedia, OpenPlantbook, iNaturalist, ASPCA).