Plants are beautiful, mysterious, and dynamic. No matter what perspective you grew up with or are trained on, there’s no denying the essential role plants play in all communities, human, animal or otherwise. We are utterly dependent on them.
We wonder, then, how plants are not a fixture in human consciousness in the way they were for the past hundreds of thousands of years. As with many things in nature, our awareness has grown fuzzier, our distractions sharper. But the many thousands of species of plants that were around eons ago still fuel our bodies, our pleasures, and our imaginations. They are an incredible gift to our species. And they remind us that we too are members of a much larger community in which, as Robin Wall Kimmerer has said, “all flourishing is mutual.”
Plant Wild is first and foremost a collection of like-minded and curious people who want to enjoy the benefits of plants and the communities they nourish. Our intention is to help our members and visitors welcome plants back into their daily lives. We’ll do this by stripping away some of the acculturated ideas around what plants are, most of which happened when we weren’t looking. Discerning and appreciating what plants have done for us — and what they will continue doing whether we’re paying attention or not — is one of the great pleasures of being alive.
We focus at Plant Wild on native plants, on plants that became deeply enmeshed with the land and other species long before the influence of modern humans, and on adding their beauty and surprising complexity to our yards and landscapes. They are more than sufficient to provide all the benefits and pleasures we’ve learned to appreciate, and many we didn’t know existed. The fact is, we don’t know better than nature. So far, nothing has improved on the ability of a straight plant species to perform its many functions and contribute to an ecosystem that is healthy, versatile and resilient. Science proves this to us over and over. And we see constant reminders that when we garden with the tools nature hands us, the outcomes are better.
So welcome to our ideas, our creativity, and our willingness to share everything we know and learn as we explore the world of native plant gardening. We look forward to your contributions as well, and we thank you for being here.
Not sure where to begin? Visit our Get Started page. And we are always here to help.
