Native Plants Work
Grow Native! is the native plant marketing and education program of the Missouri Prairie Foundation.
Wildflower garden by Scott Woodbury, Ozark Witchazel by MDC, Polyphemus by Linda Williams, grasses and goldenrod by Frank Oberle.
What is the Lower Midwest?

Grow Native! helps protect and restore biodiversity by increasing conservation awareness of native plants and their effective use in urban, suburban, and rural developed landscapes of the Lower Midwest—Missouri, southwestern Illinois, northern Arkansas, and eastern Kansas.
Grow Native! Events
Jefferson City Native Plant Sale
Jefferson City Native Plant Sale
NATIVE PLANTS WORK
Choose native plants and put them to work for you:
- Beautify your surroundings and fill your landscape with life!
- Sustain the hundreds of species of pollinators of the lower Midwest
- Feed monarch butterflies and help ensure that their awe-inspiring migration forever remains a wonder of planet Earth!
- Support native songbirds
- Manage stormwater and protect streams
- Store carbon with deep-rooted natives
- Build healthy soil
- Provide drought-tolerant forage for livestock and use natives in other ways on farms
- Provide native edibles for people–pawpaws, elderberries, persimmons, walnuts and more!
- Create and enhance habitat for wildlife
Find out more on our Learn page.

Top Stories
News
Community Conservation: Interview with Ronda Burnett
In 2020, Ronda Burnett became the new chair of MPF's Grow Native! Committee. A native of Monett, MO, Ronda has worked as a community conservation planner with the Missouri Department of Conservation in Springfield, MO since 2005. Ronda is also the author of...
Digging in to 2021 with Your Garden Plan Panel Webinar February 4th, 2021
Learn from four regional experts on landscaping and designing with native plants in this panel webinar, free to all registrants, hosted by the Grow Native! Southwest Illinois event committee and the Grow Native! program.
Webinars and Master Classes for the New Year
Missouri Prairie Foundation & Grow Native! Webinars and Master Classes for the New Year Enjoy weekly online programming January through March 2021 December 15, 2020, Columbia, MO—The Missouri Prairie Foundation (MPF) and its 20-year-old Grow Native! program have...
Be a Part of the 2020 Marker Match Campaign
Recognizing the importance of the work MPF does to protect prairies and expand prairie plantings, MPF lifetime members Susan Lordi Marker and Dennis Marker will match—to $20,000 —all donations of any amount given in 2020 to support prairie protection and prairie plantings.