To help gardeners include more native plants in their gardens, we’ve hunted down the very best YouTube videos about native plants for the garden. These are the great-looking, great-performing native plants that are actually available on the market.
We don’t include videos about the benefits of growing native plants because that’s a tell-me subject that’s well covered in books and online in text. The best natives for home gardens is a show-me topic – a topic for video!
The Plants
“DESIGNING WITH CALIFORNIA NATIVES” is by an eco-educational project called Life – Landscape Integrity Films and Education.
Californians can peruse the extensive playlists for more ideas: California Native Garden (12 videos), California Native Dry Shade Garden (13 videos), and Mixing California Native and Non-Natives (17 videos).
“CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANTS” by the Rogers Garden Center in S. California. Good info, though plants are shown in the nursery, not in gardens.
“NATIVE SEDGES” by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension.
“NATIVE SHRUBS,” also by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension.
“NATIVES FOR SHADE” by the always-terrific Melinda Myers, a horticulturist in the Midwest.
“NATIVE PLANTS FOR LATE SUMMER” by P. Allen Smith of Little Rock, Arkansas. Produced in 2008, but still useful.
“NATIVE PLANTS” by Mississippi State Extension. The full transcript is shown in the video description – so helpful.
“GEORGIA NATIVE PLANTS” by home gardeners Daphne and Steven Roberts. Using still photos and captions but no narration, it’s still instructive.
“MID-ATLANTIC NATIVES AND THE POLLINATORS THEY SUPPORT” by a mystery video-maker somewhere in North Carolina. It shows actual video of bees and other pollinators and the plants they visit, all well identified. Fabulous!
“BEST-PERFORMING NATIVE PLANTS IN MY GARDEN” by Good Gardening Videos editor Susan Harris in Maryland. It uses still photos of 10 full-grown plants and recommends three “bonus plants” in the video description.
“WILDFLOWERS IN THE MEADOW” covers the meadow at Yale’s Marsh Botanic Garden, with horticulturist Eric Larson. Video by Garden Clips in Connecticut.
“SHADE PLANTS FOR THE NORTHEAST” and “GREAT NATIVE GROUND COVERS” by Kim Eierman, founder of EcoBeneficial. for the Northeast. They’d be even more helpful with captions (we’re big caption-boosters here at GGVideos).
Tours of Native-Plant Gardens
“A GARDEN FOR WILDLIFE” visits the beautiful garden of Sara Van Fleet (of the University of Washington), a short ferry ride from Seattle. For Fine Gardening Magazine.
“GO WILD, GO NATIVE” is a garden make-over story, with great shots of the actual wildlife the garden now attracts, all well identified. Somewhere in Minnesota. Video by the Nature Conservancy.
“NATIVE PLANTS IN MICHIGAN GARDENS” tours two gardens in Michigan – one private, one public. Good science-based information from Michigan State University.
“TENNESSEE NATIVE PLANT GARDENS” tours a garden with Troy Marden for Volunteer Gardener, a Nashville-based PBS television show. The video was made in mid-summer, somewhere in Tennessee.
More here on GGVideos
Use our search box (upper right) to find good videos about these native plants by name: coreopsis, joe pye weed, asters, garden phlox, baptisia, redbud, ragwort, and goldenrod.
Or put “pollinator” in the search box to find our growing collection of pollinator-plant videos, which recommend natives primarily but not exclusively.
Nudging Native-Plant Advocates to Make Videos!
In this guest-post on a popular wildflower blog, we show advocates how to make easy-peasy videos they will help more people find native plants for their gardens.
