Native Plants
Start with your zip or postal code. It places you in a state or province and an ecoregion at once.
Sorted for your hardiness zone, with sowing and bloom times that follow your frost dates.
About 14% of plant genera host more than 90% of the caterpillars songbirds feed their young. Which plants those are depends on your ecoregion, not your hardiness zone.
An ecoregion groups land by climate, soil and the plants and animals that live there. Zone 8a runs from the Oregon coast to Georgia, and those gardens have different keystone plants.
Hardwood forest from the Atlantic to the edge of the prairie, southern Ontario and the Maritimes to central Florida and east Texas.
Top caterpillar hosts
Oak, cherry and plum, willow, birch, poplar and cottonwood
For specialist bees
Sunflower, goldenrod, aster, black-eyed Susan
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →Prairie from the Canadian Prairies to the Texas Gulf coast, with trees mostly along the rivers.
Top caterpillar hosts
Oak, cherry and plum, willow, birch, poplar and cottonwood
For specialist bees
Sunflower, gumweed, goldenrod, rabbitbrush
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →Spruce, fir, birch and aspen woods of the upper Great Lakes and northern New England, running north into Canada.
Top caterpillar hosts
Oak, cherry and plum, willow, birch, aspen and poplar
For specialist bees
Sunflower, goldenrod, black-eyed Susan, aster
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →The Rockies, Cascades and Sierra Nevada: conifer forest broken by mountain meadows.
Top caterpillar hosts
Willow, cherry and plum, aspen and poplar, birch, oak
For specialist bees
Sunflower, rabbitbrush, gumweed, snakeweed
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →The wet, mild coast from northern California to southeast Alaska: Douglas fir, hemlock and cedar.
Top caterpillar hosts
Willow, cherry and plum, poplar and cottonwood, oak, alder
For specialist bees
Goldenbush, gumweed, thistle, goldenrod
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →The Great Basin, Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts: sagebrush, creosote and cactus country.
Top caterpillar hosts
Willow, oak, cherry and plum, poplar and cottonwood, pine
For specialist bees
Goldenbush, snakeweed, rabbitbrush, sunflower
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →Coastal and Central Valley California, wet in winter and dry all summer: chaparral, oak woodland and grassland.
Top caterpillar hosts
Willow, oak, cherry and plum, poplar and cottonwood, pine
For specialist bees
Goldenbush, sunflower, rabbitbrush, gumweed
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →High grassland of southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico, between the desert floor and the mountains.
Top caterpillar hosts
Oak, willow, cherry and plum, pine, poplar and cottonwood
For specialist bees
Goldenaster, sunflower, snakeweed, desert marigold
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →Pine-oak mountains of the Mogollon Rim and the Southwest's sky islands, reaching south into Mexico.
Top caterpillar hosts
Oak, cherry and plum, willow, pine, aspen and poplar
For specialist bees
Sunflower, snakeweed, rabbitbrush, gumweed
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →The southern tip of Florida and the Keys: pine rockland, hardwood hammock and the Everglades.
Top caterpillar hosts
Oak, cherry, willow, maple, pine
For specialist bees
Sunflower, tickseed, goldenaster, black-eyed Susan
Full list from the National Wildlife FederationKeystone plants, the web and the states it covers →Boreal spruce forest across interior Alaska and northern Canada, Yukon to Labrador.
No keystone list has been published for this region yet.
Keystone plants, the web and the states it covers →Treeless arctic from coastal Alaska across Canada's north to Hudson Bay.
No keystone list has been published for this region yet.
Keystone plants, the web and the states it covers →Glaciated mountains and fjords along the east coast of Baffin and Ellesmere islands.
No keystone list has been published for this region yet.
Keystone plants, the web and the provinces it covers →Bogs, fens and muskeg on the flat lowlands south of Hudson Bay and James Bay.
No keystone list has been published for this region yet.
Keystone plants, the web and the provinces it covers →Seasonally dry tropical forest along Mexico's Pacific slope, the Balsas basin and the Yucatán Peninsula.
No keystone list has been published for this region yet.
Keystone plants, the web and the provinces it covers →
Keystone rankings from the National Wildlife Federation, based on caterpillar host research by Doug Tallamy's lab at the University of Delaware (Narango, Tallamy & Shropshire, 2020) and specialist-bee research by Jarrod Fowler. Ecoregion boundaries: Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Level I. Hawaii is not part of the North American ecoregion framework.