Native plants for naturalizing
Naturalizing means planting something that spreads and self-sows until it reads as a stand rather than a planting — the way to fill a meadow, a woodland edge, or a back acre without buying plants by the hundred. These natives establish and take over from there. Match the plant to the site and let it find its own borders; this is the wrong list for a tidy front bed.
Bedfellow lists 648 of these.
The 30 most-observed are listed here — see all 648 in search.
- Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)
- Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)
- Common Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
- Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides)
- Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica)
- False Solomon's Seal (Maianthemum racemosum)
- Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis)
- California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica)
- Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
- Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris)
- Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
- Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)
- Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense)
- Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens)
- White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima)
- Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum)
- Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa)
- Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum)
- Cut-leaved Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata)
- Pink Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa)
- Blue Mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum)
- Lyre-leaf Sage (Salvia lyrata)
- Sacred Datura (Datura wrightii)
- Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)
- Woodland Phlox (Phlox divaricata)
- Cinnamon Fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum)
- Ebony Spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron)
- Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata)
- Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)
- Wild Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis)