About the Plants
Your Resource Hub for South Carolina’s Native Plants
This new page will serve as a hub for useful information about selecting, growing or finding our South Carolina native plants. The page will provide data about propagation, best conditions for planting, life-cycle & maintenance, and seed harvesting. It will also provide you with various plant groupings to help you populate your landscape, as well as the when, how and where to purchase many of our natives around the state.
While we’re under construction we invite you to provide us with feedback by way of questions and/or comments to help us improve this page, so please let us know how we’re doing.
Smooth Coneflower (Echinacea laevigata) by Bill Sharpton
SC NATIVE PLANT LIST
On this listing are many of the plants considered to be ‘native’ to South Carolina. It is our intention to eventually include links to our own Native Plant Data Sheets or those of other resources (like Missouri Botanical Gardens, NCSU Plant Database, and NameThatPlant.net) that will provide you with photographs of the plant through it’s life-cycle along with plant characteristics, ideal conditions and useful information from our own membership.
SC NATIVE PLANT LIST (by Family)
SCNPS NATIVE PLANT SALES
One of the driving goals for the SCNPS is helping to make our native plants available to our communities. We’re seeing an increasing wide selection of native plants in commercial nurseries and our volunteer growers remain an important part of the network. Click on the links below for more information on when, where and how to buy native plants in and around South Carolina.
If you haven’t already, please subscribe on our SCNPS Website Homepage to our mailing list
or stay tuned here on upcoming sales events.
Oconee Bells (Shortia galacifoliaj) by Janie Marlow
RARE & THREATENED NATIVES
Among the many incredible native plants in our states habitats are some of the rarest in the world. Click on these below to read more about some of these:
- The Oconee Bell (Shortia galacifolia) story by Kay Ward
- Bunched Arrowhead (Sagittaria fasciculata)
- Dwarf-flowered heartleaf (Hexastylis naniflora)
- Cliff Saxifrage (Micranthes petiolaris var. petiolaris, or var. shealyi?
- Rocky Shoals Spider Lily (Hymenocallis coronaria)
SC THREATENED/ENDANGERED PLANTS
PLANT IDENTIFICATION
Dr. Steven R. Hill is a botanist with the Illinois Natural History Survey. Formerly the Curator of the Clemson University Herbarium (1987-1994), he is an Oconee County landowner where he plans tyo retire and remains an active and important member of SCNPS. Dr. Hill is happy to help you with those difficult-to-identify plants you find on your walks and he shares the answers with the rest of us to help grow the general knowledge base.
Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia Hirta) photo by Doug Lockard
RIGHT PLANT – RIGHT PLACE
In this section, learn more about plant communities and groupings. One the most important considerations is getting this part right. Some of the most experienced of our membership have teamed together to arrive at these listings for your benefit and continue to update them based on new experience
NATIVE ALTERNATIVES TO INVASIVE PLANTS
NATIVE GROUND COVERS FOR SHADE GARDENS
NATIVE ATLERNATIVES TO TURF GRASS LAWNS
PLANT COMMUNITIES (coming soon, needs an author)
SHADE GARDENS (coming soon, needs an author)
RAIN GARDEN (coming soon, needs an author)
WOODLAND MARGIN (coming soon, needs an author)
RETAIL NURSERIES IN SOUTH CAROLINA (and nearby)
NATIVE PLANTS: RETAIL LOCATIONS
This list features nurseries that emphasize native plants, organized by region.
If you would like to bookmark this list for future reference, we recommend bookmarking this page instead (and scrolling down to the “Retail Nurseries in South Carolina” section at the bottom of the page) to ensure that you’re always viewing the most up-to-date version of this resource.
