West Haven Native Plant Initiative

08/11/2026

Free Live Webinar with Community Chat:
The Ecology of Home: Creating Habitat That Works
Presented by Shaun McCoshum.

Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes promotes environmentally sound landscaping practices to preserve biodiversity through the preservation, restoration and establishment of native plant communities.

08/10/2026

The CT chapter of WildOnes' annual native plant sale is officially open.
Direct link here:

Click on menu to see plants available to order.

The Wild Ones Mountain Laurel Chapter & Connecticut College Arboretum 6th Annual Fall Native Plant Sale Native trees, shrubs, vines, perennial forbs, grasses and ferns…What natives would you like to add your landscape this year? Ordering is now OPEN and will run through August 30. Click on link b....

07/19/2026

Great list of what plants help our native bees and butterflies!
https://gegearlab.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/7/0/127008126/plant_list_with_butterfly_2023.pdf?fbclid=IwVERFWATJpcFwZG9mAWZkaWQWUK3TdX7128gCQOiUFOJpoGd8TWIwZ2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDzE3Mzg0NzY0MjY3MDM3MAABHlGoXJsS6o4K-x8f-Nl9Q87cGDV5Hj1W11ph8WvbqMs1hO3yJGgRvqmdYFN-_aem_sc-U86K4FmF0NZIkk1QmWg

07/11/2026

"Native plants aren't optional extras; they're the base of the food chain.

Most leaf-eating insects can only eat a narrow set of plants they've coevolved with. Take away the natives, and you take away the food web everything else depends on.

A small number of plants do most of the work.
On average, just 14% of native species in a region support more than 90% of local butterflies and moths (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19565-4). Planting the right natives matters more than planting a lot of anything.

The results show up fast.
Yards landscaped primarily with native plants host 66% more bird species (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18950471/) than conventional yards. One well-known study found Carolina chickadees (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1809259115) could only sustain their populations when yards were at least 70% native.

This is bigger than any one garden.
Roughly 40 million acres of the U.S. are covered in ecologically empty turfgrass, much of it on private property. Restoring even half of that would create a connected patchwork of habitat larger than every national park combined."

From https://homegrownnationalpark.org/

06/25/2026

Most recent info for UrbanScapes Native Plant Nursery in New Haven

06/21/2026

Several folks have asked about where to source native plants locally, and we have referred them to https://menunkatuck.org/urbanscapes-native-plant-nursery. But a reader recently advised us their address is not on their website! You can find them at 133 Hazel St. in New Haven. Not sure of their summer hours, so check before you go.

06/16/2026

Last 10 days to get your $25 rebate for Native Plant purchase.
Don't miss out!

06/10/2026

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), Eastern Bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana), and the last of our native Columbines (Aquilegia canadensis) blooming at South Street.