- Native plants provide benefits to gardeners and to the environment
- Some notable plants native to Michigan are purple prairie clover, butterfly weed, spring beauty and prairie smoke
There may still be snow on the ground in Michigan, but soon native plant sales will be popping up alongside spring wildflowers.
Some have already arrived. Gardeners across the state will seek out the plants, which come with many benefits.
Native plants are uniquely qualified to be in Michigan because they’re from here.
“This is where they evolved, this is where they grew up,” said Carolyn Miller, president of the Wildflower Association of Michigan.
Being from here means native plants sometimes provide special services to the insects they “grew up” alongside (think monarchs and milkweed), but it also means they learned how to adapt to their environment.
A lot of Michigan native plants came from prairie land, where they had to sometimes endure months without rain. As a result, they commonly developed long roots.
“Some of these root systems go down nine feet,” Miller said. “So they can tap into the water, the moisture, that might be down that far.”
Those long roots help hold soil together, creating channels for rainwater to flow downslowly, which mitigates flooding, and they can actually store carbon and help cool the climate.
In addition to providing benefits to the environment, native plants can help gardeners out, too. Once established, many are drought tolerant, which can make them easier to care for.
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Carolyn Miller loves prairie smoke because, once it goes to seed, “it literally looks like a little puff of smoke.” (Courtesy of Carolyn Miller) -
Carolyn Miller likes purple prairie clover because its tiny flowers are popular with small, native bees. (Courtesy of Carolyn Miller) -
The spring beauty mining bee will only take pollen from the buds of the spring beauty plant, pictured here. (Courtesy of Carolyn Miller) -
Monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on butterfly weed, the orange flower pictured here behind echinacea, but Carolyn Miller says it doesn’t spread as much as common milkweed. (Courtesy of Carolyn Miller)
Click through the photos above to see some native plants recommended by Miller.
Below, you’ll find a list of native plant sales happening this spring and summer. The list was put together with some help from Bridge Michigan readers and is not a comprehensive list. If you don’t see a native plant sale listed near you, we recommend you reach out to your local Conservation District.
THE UPPER PENINSULA
- May 8: Bay College Native Plant Sale, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Escanaba.
- May 30: UP Native Plants and Moosewood Nature Center Plant Sale, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Marquette.
- June 6: UP Native Plants and Dickinson Conservation District Plant Sale, 8 a.m. to noon in Iron Mountain.
- July 23: UP Native Plants Bay Mills Plant Sale, 4 to 7 p.m. in Brimley.
- July 31: UP Native Plants and Gogebic Conservation District Plant Sale, 4 to 6 p.m. in Ironwood.
- July 26: UP Native Plants Hessel Farmers Market Plant Sale, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Hessel.
- July 29: UP Native Plants and Alger Conservation District Plant Sale, 5 to 7 p.m. in Munising.
