What is a Locavore? Actually added to the dictionary last year, it refers to people who go to great lengths to source locally grown and manufactured food and other materials.   The trend that started with food is expanding to other areas of our consciousness  so what does that mean if you want to stay local with your garden.   Mostly it means natives.

If you are a regular reader, you know that I have been working on a ongoing series, 50 natives for 50 states.  So far we are into it by 19 plants (17 states, one district and one Canadian province).   I hope to wrap it up the 50 states part by the end of the year – and since so many of you are from so many places (108 countries and counting) we will start going global.  Here is the map of where we have been so far.

I plan to use some of your ideas and favorite plants left in the comment section of the current giveaway – so if you are so inclined to help us out, I would really appreciate it – and you could win a book for your efforts.

I wanted to share with you a few resources for learning about natives though.  I use plantnative.org constantly.  It is one of the best online resources for lists of locally appropriate native plants and where to buy them.

Another good resource for finding plants from your area is enature.  They have a handy tool that allows you to put in your location and the type of plant you are looking for and they will return results with a picture of the plant and a little bit of information.

I have known that lady slippers are a highly revered native plant of Massachusetts since shortly after moving here (people really go nuts for them) — but with Enature, I learned exactly which lady slippers are from around here..I think I am starting to fit in around here…I noticed one along side my driveway last summer and was so excited.

1. Lady’s Slippers, 2. Lady’s Slipper, 3. Showy Lady Slippers