Grow Where You Are: Native Garden Designs That Bring Habitat Home

Posted on | National News

Pollinators don’t need perfect yards. They need native plants, and they need them everywhere. That’s where Wild Ones’ Native Garden Designs come in. These free, professionally developed garden plans are made to work where you live, using native plants that support wildlife and thrive in local conditions.

This summer, we’re bringing new energy to the Native Garden Design program. We’ve spotlighted four great designs and we’re making it easier than ever to share, download, and grow from them.

Too many people are still asking: “Where do I start? These designs are the answer.

Wild Ones Native Garden Designs are free, professionally created plans that show how to turn a typical yard into a beautiful, functional native plant garden. Each design is tailored to a specific ecoregion and includes a layout, plant list, and tips to help people get started. The goal is to inspire and guide people to replace lawns with native plants.

The resource also offers a variety of tools. Including native plant lists, a Getting Started Guide, climate-resilient landscaping strategies, ordinance support, member garden profiles, nursery directories, expert videos, and more. All to help you move from inspiration to action.

About Grow Where You Are

This summer, we’re bringing new energy to the Native Garden Designs program with the Grow Where You Are campaign. We’re spotlighting four featured garden designs and inviting communities across the country to download, plant, and share their native garden journey. Whether you’re working with a front yard, a school courtyard, or a community park, these designs give you the tools to create real impact, right where you are.

Help Us Grow This Movement

You can be a voice for native plants. Share What You’re Growing! Whether you’re just starting out or have an established habitat, posting your garden is a powerful way to inspire others. A simple photo with a line like…

  • “I used a free native garden design from Wild Ones to start my pollinator garden.”
  • “This layout made it easy to bring habitat to my yard.”

…can help someone else take their first step. Don’t forget to tag @wildonesnativeplants and use #GrowWhereYouAre.

Grow Where You Are Campaign Toolkit

We’ve made it easy to share and promote this campaign with a free outreach toolkit. Whether you’re talking to friends, leading a chapter, or encouraging a neighbor to start planting, this toolkit has what you need. It includes:

  • Printable Flyers – Two PDFs to hang in public spaces or hand out at events
  • Social Media Graphics – Ready-to-use images sized for social platforms
  • Prewritten Captions – Just copy, paste, and personalize with your local garden design link
  • Posting Tips – Suggestions for chapters, volunteers, and individuals to share content
  • Story Submission Guide – Directions to share your garden photos and stories
  • Join & Certify Content – Graphics and blurbs to promote Wild Ones membership and Certified Native Habitat program

You’ll find ready-to-use assets designed to inspire community engagement, promote our Grow Where You Are campaign, boost participation in our Certified Native Habitat Program, and invite others to join the movement!

Visit https://wildonez.sharepoint.com/:f:/s/ExternalFileSharing/Eg6j8ZCTSb5BkyMzNw1-0G0BIK95gobbW4fk6H9kNXiWWQ?e=lk30GN or click the button below to access the Grow Where You Are Toolkit.

How to Use These Designs

Start by picking a design that matches your region (Find your Ecoregion). Look at the layout to see how plants are grouped by light, moisture, and height. Check the plant list for species that work in your space. Then adapt it to your yard—scale it up or down, swap in similar natives, and build over time. The designs give you a roadmap, but you choose the route.

Use these designs as inspiration, a jumping-off point, or a full garden plan. You don’t have to do it all at once.

Lincoln–Omaha, NE

Prairie-inspired and pollinator-driven. This prairie-inspired matrix design was created by nationally recognized author, speaker, educator and prairie-inspired garden designer, Benjamin Vogt. He leads Monarch Gardens, a design firm focused on naturalistic landscapes using native plants.

View this design

Tailored for the Western Corn Belt Plains, a region stretching from eastern Nebraska and South Dakota through Iowa, southern Minnesota, and into parts of Missouri and Kansas. This design is adaptable across much of the eastern plains and the Midwest. Vogt notes that the design’s layered, self-sustaining plant communities are a universal starting point for gardeners seeking to reduce maintenance and build habitat.

Vogt explains that “this garden isn’t just about being pretty. It’s structured to support insects—moths, butterflies, solitary bees, beetles.” His design includes keystone perennials like aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium), which he’s observed “just vibrating with native bees” in October.

Portland, ME

Layered for Pollinators, Built for Resilience. Designer Heather McCargo, native plant educator and founder of Wild Seed Project, created the Portland, ME design to blend into the surrounding forest. “Woody plants serve as host plants for many species of fauna, especially the butterfly and moth family,” McCargo notes. The layout features keystone species like red oak (Quercus rubra) and beach plum (Prunus maritima), as well as ground-layer plants like golden groundsel (Packera aurea) and beebalm (Monarda didyma).

View this design

Because of the design’s adaptability to both sun and shade, and its focus on common residential soil disturbances like compaction and topsoil removal, the Portland design is useful beyond just southern Maine and the Northeastern Coastal Zone ecoregion. Gardeners throughout much of northern and central New England, including inland parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and even southern Vermont, can use this plan as a guide for planting layered native habitat in both urban and semi-rural settings.

It’s a dense and layered habitat plan that functions in all seasons. As McCargo explains, “Native plant corridors attract pollinators and wildlife… by stretching across your property to connect your piece of native habitat to nearby meadows, wetlands or woodlands.”

Indianapolis, IN

Subtle strategies, big impact for pollinators. Designed by Sarah Gray and Coralie Palmer of the Indiana Native Plant Society, this garden plan reflects the ecological heritage of the Eastern Corn Belt Plains, integrating soft edges and gentle transitions to create pollinator-friendly spaces in suburban neighborhoods.

View this design

The site’s varied soils present both challenge and opportunity, but the design embraces these conditions to provide essential habitat. As Gray notes, “Nesting habitat is often the missing piece in pollinator gardens—but it doesn’t take much to include it.” Features like bare soil patches, standing stems, and natural leaf litter support overwintering and ground-nesting bees, moving beyond flowers to complete the pollinator life cycle.

Palmer emphasizes the value of strategic planting: “Species selection really can make a very big difference to the ecological value of your habitat.” The plan prioritizes keystone species and includes signage zones to educate the public, helping others recognize the purpose behind a slightly wilder yard.

Dallas–Fort Worth, TX

Heat-smart and habitat-rich. This design by Christine Ten Eyck, founder Ten Eyck Landscape Architects. is built for life in North Central Texas. The design highlights plants that are native to the Blackland Prairie and the Cross Timbers ecoregions. Together, these regions stretch across much of north-central Texas, making the Dallas–Fort design broadly applicable across a diverse and ecologically significant part of the state.

View this design

It’s structured to handle extreme weather while providing year-round support for pollinators. The layout showcases hardy species like golden zexmenia (Wedelia texana), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), and mealy blue sage (Salvia farinacea) to sustain biodiversity through heat and seasonal transitions. “Our mission really is to connect the urban dweller with nature and one another,” shared the designer, adding that even in tough climates, “you can create something really meaningful that’s also low maintenance and beautiful.”

More Coming Soon

We’ve got new designs launching this fall for Albany, NY; Lexington, KY; Richmond, VA; and San Diego, CA. If you don’t see your region yet, hang tight! We’re working on it.

In the meantime, start where you are. Plant what you can. Make it native.