What Got You Into Native Plants?

Basically the title. Despite being interested in plants as a teen and trying to germinate exotics under my first grow light, I didn't get into natives until much later...completely on accident.

I stopped growing anything for like 6 years. Climbed out of the hole I was in and felt the itch to watch a plant from seed the first year in mostly shade. I decided on a variety of impatiens and anise hyssop for the pollinators (pretty much randomly decided on this too, just because)

The impatiens didn't like it at all when I didn't water for 2 days and they died. But the hyssop didn't care at all. Over the course of summer I forgot about them a lot, they drooped some but never died in the summer heat in these containers. I was amazed. Some natives are built different!

When they started to flower it was really cool. But when I saw bees and butterflies buzzing those small plants...it just hit different. It really warmed my heart. I was amazed by how many bugs were attracted to otherwise small and unassuming plants. I was just hooked.

It wasn't long afterword that I dug a couple of small beds to experiment with other species. I've learned so much this year from the failures and successes of all this. It really feels like this is going to last a life time for me. Observing the relationships these plants have with their environment is endlessly fascinating. I wouldn't have it any other way!