how the fuck am i meant to decide how to start a native garden as someone who's never gardened before - especially as most "guides to gardening" do not focus on natives and even if they do they probably don't have advice for my ecology. do i just like get some seeds plant em and see what grows and learn from that? my brain will shut down if i feel like i Have to have a perfect idea of what im doing before even starting, so idk, that seems best. somehow make a lot of mistakes and make them really fast and see what sticks
look at the sky.
taste me, as the food and drink Alice found almost said. she was cast unto a stormshorn sunderedsea. you too will fall beneath my waves in time.
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in reply to @lookatthesky's post:
Check in with your local library. They will have a section of gardening book, and very likely will have books for your area. Libraries also sometimes have gardening classes or even seed libraries. A seed library you can "check out" a packet of seeds, and then in the fall you return some of the seeds you collected from the plants you grew. You may also have gardening or farming clubs in your area that might be able to provide advice.
the main problem is. i don't know how much of this is gonna be applicable to the native part
I am not sure your location, but at least in the US, each state has an agricultural extension (I think usually affiliated with a state college). If this applies to you, your state's website will have lots of information about what plants and trees are native to your area. Some even have online classes you can take.
California Native Plant Society is a gold mine if you live here. Local chapters organize garden tours which are great for getting ideas and know how. I’ve also learned a lot volunteering for habitat restoration projects run by local nonprofits.
But the bottom line from everyone I’ve spoken with is you just try stuff and figure out what works for your garden.
It is hardddd. But for me the easiest thing was to go to gardenia.net and search their native plants section (by country and then by state): (www.gardenia.net/native-plants) They have wayyy crazy amounts of filters u can use for soil type (clay? Sand? Wet soil? Dry?) As well as what kind of sun you get (full sun? Shade?) They even have links where you can "buy" seeds for plants but a lot of them are busted tbh. They truly have a fuck load of plants you'll never have even heard of (and may be hard to find) but it really made me fall in love with a lot of native plants I recognized in my area and gave me a starting point - there are several nurseries I found that send seeds in my part of the country.