Why Our Plants?

Restoring Habitat through Open-Pollinated, Local-Ecotype (OPLE) Native Plants

open pollinated native plant nursery, Philadelphia — Our plants bring all the bugs to the yard!

Open-pollinated plants – plants pollinated by by insects, animals, wind, or other natural processes – allow for genetic diversity and greater amount of variation within plant populations. Open pollination allows plants to adapt to changing climate and changes in local conditions.

Our desire at Good Host Plants is to provide the best possible native plants for gardening and restoration projects, not simply the native cultivars commonly found in garden centers, and believe genetic provenance to be of utmost importance. Our network of growers, including Archewild and Kind Earth Growers, are committed to the preservation of regional genetic diversity.

Many garden centers offer native plants without knowing their genetic origins. Plant geneticists know that each EPA ecoregions essentially has its own unique gene pool for this species and that mixing genes results in reduced fitness in indigenous populations. In our rush to use native plants, we could inadvertently be on a path to cause a net decline in native plant population due to unnatural genetic dispersal. The newest thinking is to use local seed and plant suppliers that have access to or are already growing stock from genetics collected within the ecoregions that a project is being built.

native plant ecoregion tags — Do you know where your plants come from? They may be native, but are they adapted to your climate and ecosystem geography? You’ll know now, as we’ll be tracking EcoRegion and using unique identifiers to identify the seed source on our pot tags this year. Like last year, we continue to list genus, species, and subspecies.

In addition to good genetics of regional provenance, our plants are selected for wildlife value. Many of our species are specified as beneficial to pollinators by the Xerces Society, best bets to attract butterflies and moths in the US mid-Atlantic region by Doug Tallamy, and identified as native to Philadelphia in the Fairmount Park System Natural Lands Restoration Master Plan. These designations are indicated on our species list.

Commitment to Sustainability and Environmentally-Friendly Growing Methods

We grow our native plants without the use of pesticides or herbicides. We do not use neonicotinoids in any form, and do not purchase plants from other growers who utilize neonicotinoids in their production. All plants are seed-grown and we strongly discourage the practice of poaching of native wildflowers.

We use peat-free potting mix for our potted plants. Peat moss is the partially-decomposed remains of sphagnum moss from bogs. It is a non-renewable resource, in that it takes thousands of years to form, and the process of mining peat disturbs precious habitat for birds, amphibians, reptiles, and beneficial insects.

We do not use hormones to inhibit growth of our plants to make them more presentable in the nursery. We try to keep things as natural and organic as possible, so spraying or treating with chemicals without knowing their full impact on insects and pollinators is not worth the risk of a better presentation, in our opinion. We only use OMRI certified materials for pest/disease management.