Native Plants Work

Indian pink by Reva Dow, cuckoo bee by Ed Spevak, bumble bee on blue false indigo by Ed Spevak, grasses and goldenrod by Frank Oberle, Polyphemus by Linda Williams.

What is the Lower Midwest?

Map of lower midwest showing Grow Native service area

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.

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Grow Native! Events

A hover fly, which has stripes like a bee, forages on a light purple flower with three petals

MPF Master Class: Hover Flies: Pollinators, Predators, and Master Mimics

June 7, 2023 at Zoom

Bright green oak leaves with sunlight shining through them

MPF Webinar: The Nature of Things: Botany, Ecology, and Medieval Art

July 5, 2023 at Zoom

Grow Native! 2023 Professional Member Conference

November 8, 2023

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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.

Cover of the 2022 Grow Native! resource guide with a grid of photos, including a small girl looking at a monarch butterfly, a bluebird, a hummingbird, a bobwhite quail, a bee on a purple flower, a man picking a paw paw fruit, etc.

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Top Stories

Witchaze, flowers in bloom, with thin yellow petals and red sepals, on a bare branch against a blue sky.

Leave the Leaves

Container Gardening

Webinars & Master Classes

News

APA Virtual Luncheon on Land Trusts & Communities April 19

March 31, 2023

Members of the Missouri Land Trust Coalition, of which MPF serves on the Steering Committee, as well as the Marlborough Community Land Trust, will present on how communities can use land trusts for community planning. If you would like to attend, here is the link,...

New Report Suggests Supply of Native Seeds Insufficient to Meet Current, Future Ecological Restoration Project Needs

March 17, 2023

This article was first published in January on the www.nationalacademies.org website and is being reposted here, with permission, in its entirety. News Release | January 26, 2023 WASHINGTON — A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and...

Call for Award Nominations

March 6, 2023

The Missouri Prairie Foundation (MPF), its Grow Native! program, and the Missouri Invasive Plant Council (MoIP), which MPF administers, is now accepting nominations for its Missouri Prairie Foundation awards (prairie pioneer, prairie professional, prairie...

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Grow Native! Webinars and Master Classes

The Missouri Prairie Foundation and its Grow Native! program are hosting biweekly virtual webinars and master classes to learn more about native plants, natural communities, and more.

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