Why use plants indigenous to
New England in your landscape?
• Eco-friendly and sustainable.
• Can handle volatile New England weather.
• Provide food and shelter for wildlife.
• Bring all the songbirds to the yard.
• Restorative. If you have a patch of land that has struggled to host plants purchased at garden centers, chances are good there are some great natives that will thrive in that spot and improve the soil structure in the process.
• As we have become accustomed to our well-manicured (sterile) lawns and heavily mulched landscapes, we have forgotten the calm beauty of a tended wildflower meadow or the lovely winter interest of a patch of dried seed heads frequented by cold-hardy birds. Somewhere along the line, we decided that trimmed grasses are more important than the native bees that would have overwintered in the stalks, we decided that our enjoyment of double-flowered blossoms was more important than providing a food source for pollinators and that choosing an eye-catching color palette was more important than providing the colors nature intended to attract birds, bees, and other insects. By filling our gardens with the plants that found their places long before we arrived, we are being the stewards of the land as it was intended.
What people are saying
"In recent years, I have been planting an increased number of ornamentals in my garden based somewhat on information obtained from the internet and from workers at various local nurseries, the latter often less knowledgeable than I am. My sister told me about Blue Stem a few months ago and I drove to their site and chatted with Kristen, one of the co-owners, who answered a lot of my questions and provided me with a very detailed plan to augment the pollinator attractiveness of my garden. My guess is that I learned much more from her in about 2 hours than in all my previous efforts combined. The nursery has all the plants one would ever want to attract native pollinator species and buying from Blue Stem is the way to a healthier garden, indeed a healthier planet."
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Paul P.