by DEMI GUILLORY
photos provided by PLANT LOCAL
When it comes to native plants, Florida has far more to offer than palm trees, and one Lakeland business is helping people discover it.
Plant Local is a nursery and garden shop whose inventory is almost exclusively made up of plants native to Florida.
“We are 99% native,” says owner Garnet Bailey, who emphasizes that the shop’s simple but unmistakable name honors its core mission: conservation, wildlife, and plant life.
“We want to conserve our environment. We want to preserve our wildlife and everything around us,” she adds, highlighting that it starts with habitat and “habitat really starts with plants.”
Six years ago, Plant Local opened as The Nectary with this same mission, fulfilling a need in the Lakeland area for more native plants, which help to support conservation. The name change, made official this year, is a move to make what Bailey and her women-led team do in the community even clearer.
“The plant industry is not a huge moneymaker, but it’s very big on mission,” she says.
The same is true of the small staff of three at Plant Local who are passionate about native plants not because they are aesthetically pleasing but because they are better for the environment. Plants thrive when they are in the right climate, and that’s when they really make an impact.
Bailey’s vision for a native nursery grew naturally from her desire to make a bigger difference.
“What can one person do to put a dent in the huge mission of conservation efforts?” is the question she has always asked herself.
“For me personally, it was starting to have native plants in my yard to support wildlife and pollinators and reduce a lot of inputs, like less water, chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers,” she says.
Then Bailey realized there was more she could do by opening a nursery and inviting others to join her in embracing native plants. That process, she emphasizes, starts with education.
“I love educating people,” she exclaims. “We understand a lot of people have had no exposure to any of this, so we always welcome people to come in and ask questions.”
Most people have little understanding of native plants and a tendency to plant whatever they think looks best. As a result, Bailey and the Plant Local team spend a lot of time clearing up misconceptions. One of the most common is that native plants are messy and harder to maintain.
“That’s not true,” Bailey explains. “There are many very well-behaved native plants out there that look nice.” And if someone needs help with finding them to introduce to their own yard, Plant Local is fully equipped with a professional garden design service that is offered at one price for yards up to half an acre and includes a package of hands-on expert assistance.
From analyzing soil and water conditions to observing the existing plant structure and overall environment, Bailey and her team ensure their clients have as much accurate information as possible to make the most informed decisions when choosing native plants for their gardens.
“It’s really targeted at homeowners who want to switch to natives or just improve their landscape in general and don’t know where to start.”
The detailed process includes plans that are hand-drawn by their team that are turned into “old-school computer drawings” to map out a client’s vision for their garden and provide them with a blueprint for further inspiration.
Working collaboratively, Plant Local and their clients create a native oasis that is both easy to care for and sustains the local ecosystem, making gardens attractive for a variety of reasons, including what it directly offers consumers: more of their money and time.
“Our plants are more likely to spread and fill themselves in, so you buy one plant and it’s going to reseed or spread by runners,” Bailey explains. “We really follow the ‘right plant, right place’ principle. If you’re putting a native plant to Florida in dry Florida sandy soil, it likes that.” In turn, fewer resources are spent on maintenance because once these plants are in the soil, little input is required.
Any time of year yields a wide selection of native plants, but the spring season is especially popular.
“Definitely our native milkweeds,” says Bailey. Plant Local is one of the only retail nurseries in the area to stock them. “It’s our biggest seller,” followed by wildflowers such as the Stokes Aster and black-eyed Susans. The latter is frequently another teaching opportunity for the shop. “Many don’t realize these are native to Florida, but black-eyed Susans are native here all the way down to Polk County.”
Even though she sees beauty in each and every native plant, Bailey’s current favorite is the coral honeysuckle. The vine is a survivor of the winter freeze and attracts welcome visitors to her garden.
“I have a hummingbird four or five times a day on that vine outside my front window,” she says.
Whether it’s a desire to plant local or grow Central Florida edible plants (the shop’s other 1%), Bailey encourages others to visit the shop or follow their social media to learn more about native plants because Plant Local is more than a business, it’s a mission.
“And we’re doing this because we love the mission.”
