Where to find native plants near Pittsburgh
And national resources for everybody!
Want to stock your Pittsburgh-area yard with native plants? It’s not simple (yet), but if you’re game to enjoy birds and butterflies, prevent flooding, and cut back on your yard expenses, I’ve got some resources for you!
Since becoming obsessed with native plants, I have found some excellent hidey-holes throughout the region (and online) with marvelous native plant possibilities: the Audubon Nursery, Rust Belt Natives, and Arcadia Natives.
My favorite national resources are Joyful Butterfly and Prairie Moon Nursery. Joyful Butterfly’s live plants arrive in such robust shape, you can’t help but plant them successfully. (Just ask Larry, who tore apart one of my passion flower seedlings last year. Lucky for him, it survived.)
Our Local Resources
First, you’re going to want to put the Audubon Native Plant Nursery Spring Sale on your calendar (it’s May 10, 2025), and you need to go before it opens at nine. This is THE Black Friday event of native gardeners throughout the region. This Fox Chapel native garden store is teeming with kindred spirits, gathering armloads of prickly pear cactus (yes! It’s native!), sharing tips about ferns and milkweed, and loading down wagons with every native coneflower imaginable.
Sure, you could go to the same building anytime through October and get many of the same plants. But where’s the fun in that!?
Second, you’ll find native plants popping up at area farmer’s markets, but I don’t have that kind of patience. I worked directly with the owner of Rust Belt Natives to get the arrowwood plants (Vibernum dentatum) I had my eye on. When one of them failed unaccountably, she set aside a replacement for me, which flourished. I also bought some sturdy paw-paw trees from her.
I haven’t gotten down to Arcadia Natives yet — it’s close to my father’s land down in Washington County, so I will be there soon! Over the last two years, I have learned a lot from their Facebook page, and they have so many of the plants that I covet. Several of my fellow native plant aficionados have had success with their plants as well.
National Resources
You should know that the kingpin of native plants is Doug Tallamy. Everything he touches turns to green, and every article of his, or book that he publishes, feels to me like I’m drinking out of a fire hose of native plant knowledge. So just start there, and be prepared to swoon when he explains how black cherry saplings are the favorite host plants of red spotted purple.
He is the father of the Homegrown National Park movement, and he will convince you to plant an oak before you know it.
As mentioned above, both Joyful Butterfly and Prairie Moon Nursery have been my national go-to resources throughout this adventure.
One last note about Facebook groups. Some of them a fantastically supportive. Winter Sowers is terrific, and I have a big crush on Native Plants of the Northeast.
As with any Facebook groups, some of them are strangely abrasive. I’ve learned not to stay in groups who dog-pile on people who unwitting plant a cultivar (a cultivated “native” plant). The best groups are welcoming and supportive to everyone in their native planting adventures.
Good luck in your spring adventures! I just checked my winter sown crop and the Pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia) have sprouted, so it’s going to be an exciting year.
