You probably have native wildflowers growing in your yard and don’t even know it.
We didn’t.
We spent years looking at our backyard without really seeing what was growing there. This summer, that changed.
It started with a garden.
We added a lean-to onto our shop this summer — a little covered porch for morning coffee, shade in the afternoon, grilling in the evening. Along the border, we planted a Minnesota native wildflower garden.
We had no idea that garden would teach us how to see the rest of our property.
Starting With a Native Wildflower Garden
There’s a little greenhouse on the outskirts of Pine River, Minnesota, called Sunshine Gardens.
It’s run by Bonnie, who talks about native plants the way some people talk about old friends. I could have spent the whole afternoon there, learning from her and snuggling her snaggle-toothed terrier.
We went home with hyssop, bee balm, heal-all, alumroot, prairie onions, asters, brown-eyed Susans, fireweed, and a handful of other plants.
Then we watched them.
That was the whole point.
We planted them in a controlled space and paid attention to what happened. We learned what their leaves looked like. We noticed the shape of their flowers, the colors, the scents, and which insects showed up when they bloomed.
It became a nightly routine.
And slowly, we started forming a relationship with the plants.
That made it easier to recognize them somewhere else.
In this case, somewhere else was our own backyard.
The First Bloom Hooked Us
The first plant to bloom was our royal catchfly (Silene regia). It produced hundreds of little pink flowers that kept coming back all summer. By mid-August, the blooms were finally starting to dry out.
That first bloom hooked us.
Every time something else opened, we’d stop and look a little closer.
What did the leaves look like? How were the flowers arranged? What color were they? What did they smell like? What insects were visiting?
We weren’t studying from a textbook. We were just paying attention.
And the more we paid attention, the more we started noticing.
Then We Found Heal-All in the Yard
The day we found heal-all growing in our front yard, everything changed.
We’d both seen that little purple flower in the lawn before. We assumed it was a weed — something like creeping Charlie that needed to be dealt with.
We’d made an assumption without checking.
Turns out, we were wrong.
Once we’d spent the summer learning what heal-all looked like in our garden, we recognized it growing in the grass. Then we started finding more.
We realized we already had about half the plants we’d bought at the greenhouse growing naturally around our property. We just hadn’t known what we were looking at.
That’s the part that surprised me most.
We didn’t need to plant more to make our yard interesting. We needed to learn what was already there.
Using Plant Identification Apps to Confirm What We Found
Once we started finding plants we recognized, we used PictureThis to help confirm our identifications.
I don’t treat a plant identification app as the final word. When I’m trying to figure out whether something is native, invasive, noxious, or better left alone, I want to cross-check it against a reliable source.
But an app like this earns its keep the moment you’re standing in your backyard staring at a plant you’ve walked past for years without really seeing.
PictureThis also lets us keep a running record of what we’ve identified, so we’re not starting from scratch every time we spot something familiar. I especially like having photos to compare as a plant changes through the season — something can look completely different just emerging than it does covered in flowers, and having other people’s photos as reference points helps.
If you’re just getting started, iNaturalist is another good option. It helps you identify plants and puts your observations into a larger community of people documenting what’s growing around them.
Neither app replaces learning to identify a plant yourself. For us, they’re tools that help us get started.
We Started Giving Backyard Tours
Eventually, we got excited enough that we had to show people.
Anyone who came over got a walk around the property.
“Look at this one. We just figured out what it is.”
Then we’d point out the leaves, the flowers, whatever we’d learned to look for.
It probably got a little ridiculous. But it was fun.
One of my girlfriends started doing the same thing at her place. She’d lived there ten years and had no idea her backyard was full of chokecherry bushes, raspberries, heal-all, and goldenrod.
She was thrilled.
Her yard hadn’t changed. She had. She started looking at it differently.
Start With the Yard You Already Have
There’s something easy to miss when we talk about growing a more land-connected life.
We’re always looking ahead — the bigger garden, the acreage, the orchard, the food forest, the property with enough room to do all the things we’ve imagined.
But sometimes there’s plenty to learn right outside the door.
Our catalyst was a little native wildflower garden beside the shop. Planting those flowers gave us a reason to slow down and pay attention. Once we knew what we were looking for, we started seeing plants we’d walked past for years.
Now we take evening walks around the property. As the seasons change, different plants emerge, bloom, and disappear. We’re identifying more of them as we go — which ones are native, which were planted, which are useful, and which need a little more research before we decide what to do with them.
We still don’t know everything growing out there.
That’s kind of the point. We’re learning.
So, Do You Have Native Wildflowers in Your Yard?
Probably.
Whether you have acreage in the country or a small lot in town, there’s only one way to find out. Go look.
Start with one plant. Take a picture. Pay attention to the leaves. Notice when it flowers. Look at what insects are visiting it. Use an identification app to help narrow it down, then confirm what you’ve found with a reliable local source.
You might discover that the “weeds” you’ve been pulling for years are actually native wildflowers. Or you might discover something you do want to remove.
Either way, you’ll know more about the piece of land you’re standing on.
You don’t need the perfect setup to start noticing what’s already growing under your feet. You just need to look.