Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

We appreciate your very kind words and your request!  We hear you and we promise to provide the Recommended Species List you request.  Unfortunately, we will not be able to do that anytime soon.  The problem, most simply stated, boils down to lack of data.

In round numbers, there are about 20,000 vascular plant species native to North America.  Around 1700 of those are native to Nova Scotia.  The NPIN Native Plant Database is a work in progress and now includes records for approximately 40% of North America's native plant species.  Unfortunately, a small percentage of Nova Scotia's native plant species have so far been treated in our database and fewer still have representative photographs in the NPIN Image Gallery.  The limitations of time and resources are really all that stand between our desire to help and actually fulfilling your request.

The Recommended Species Lists are designed to help gardeners select species native to their areas that can be found at local nurseries and from native plant seed companies.  As you can imagine, it's no small feat to research nurseries' and seed companies' catalogs and on-line product listings and compile these lists.  In fact, our best and most useful lists are compiled by native plant enthusiasts who live in the areas in question.

We love working with our Canadian friends!  If you or others in Nova Scotia were interested in compiling a list of commercially-available native plants for your province we would be very happy to work with you on that project.  Your efforts would go a long way toward making your NPIN Recommended Species List a reality sooner rather than later.