Native plant industry grows across Milwaukee as demand for environmentally friendly gardens rises

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — The native plant industry is growing in Milwaukee, with community gardens and plant nurseries continuing to open throughout the city.

Quinn Wilder is the founder of Food Freedom Milwaukee and has opened 15 community gardens across Milwaukee.

"We do ecological restoration as well as help community gardens grow food," Wilder said.

The gardens provide food for surrounding communities, but they are also beginning to grow native plants that benefit the environment.

"That's where we really are not just thinking about food justice, but also ecological justice, environmental justice," Wilder said. "The native plant nursery industry has just exploded because of demand."

Native plants occur naturally in a region and have evolved alongside insects from the same ecoregion over thousands of years.

"They purify our air, they create a cooling benefit, and then they bring in pollinators," Wilder said.

In Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood, Burton Sprague and Dallas Maloney have been gardening in their backyard for 15 years.

This year, they officially opened Pretty Wild Nursery, which focuses specifically on native plants.

"We realized the importance of native gardening after being vegetable gardeners for many years," Sprague said. "It does a lot more for the ecology."

The nursery features plants native to southeastern Wisconsin, with most native to Milwaukee County.

"You slowly learn more and more about habitat loss and how important it is for individuals in this area to grow them in their yard because there's not that much wild space left," Maloney said.

The nursery has dozens of native plants, but its owners say they are only beginning to scratch the surface.

"There's still so many we've never even seen before that are native to southeastern Wisconsin," Maloney said. "Americans are pretty patriotic by and large, and there's nothing more patriotic than growing native plants."