Field notes from our garden

About HuBo Native

We're a couple of native plant enthusiasts in the Piedmont of North Carolina. A few years ago we read Doug Tallamy's Nature's Best Hope, and it changed how we viewed our yard. Not a lawn to maintain, but habitat waiting to happen, the Homegrown National Park that's ever expanding. We started with one sunny side garden and some stubborn clay soil, and we haven't stopped since.

As the garden filled in over the years, something wonderful happened: more and more wildlife started showing up. One morning, watching it all from our front porch, we had an idea. Why not make plant tags that capture these little moments? Not just names on a stake, but small snapshots of the garden and the creatures who visit it.

A ruby-throated hummingbird feeding at scarlet beebalm blooms
A ruby-throated hummingbird at the scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyma).
The scarlet beebalm plant tag staked in the garden bed
…and the tag it became (yes, we occasionally mix up the gender...)
A monarch butterfly on blue mistflower
A monarch visiting our blue mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum) on his fall migration.
The blue mistflower plant tag staked in the garden bed
…and the blue mistflower tag it inspired.
An eastern tiger swallowtail on Joe Pye weed
An eastern tiger swallowtail enjoying the Joe Pye weed.
The Joe Pye weed plant tag staked in the garden bed
…and the tag standing where she fed.
Lovely moment between a hummingbird and our Indian pink (Spigelia marilandica).
The Indian pink plant tag staked in the garden bed
…captured here for us to remember when winter arrives.

Sometimes a tag comes from a picture we managed to snap. Just as often, it's a moment we only witnessed while watching from the front porch, coffee in hand. The tag becomes our way of remembering it, planted right where it happened.

That's what makes these tags special to us. They're not just plant labels but small records of our garden and gentle reminders of why we grow native in the first place. As our tag collection grows, we thought we should share them with other native plant enthusiasts too.

We're still learning, still adding to the garden, still figuring this out as we go. HuBo Native is also a way for us to share our journey, and maybe help a few other gardeners fall for native plants the way we did.

See the tags these moments became →

Every design starts in our garden.