NCSU Wants To Help You Go Native

A new Web site brought to you by NC State wants to help you go native. No, it's not going to teach you to like boiled peanuts and fried okra. Instead, the site wants to help you create landscapes using native plants that are good for local wildlife. The site's at http://www.ncsu.edu/goingnative/ .

While this site will give you plenty of reasons WHY you should make sure your landscape has more native plants (more wildlife, low maintenance, etc.) the real information is in the HOW sections. The site walks you through four steps for designing and creating your native plant landscape. There's worksheets and plenty of information and links for each step.

You may be wondering which plants are native and which aren't. This site has both a list of native plants which attract wildlife and those which are invasive (the invasive list includes Kudzu, Bradford Pear, and Wisteria.)

(I think there's supposed to be a database here to help you build your own native plant list, but that part of the site was having a little trouble when I looked at it.)

While you're here, don't forget to check out the video which shows the native landscaping around Turner House on the NC State Campus.