What is up everyone? Welcome back to the podcast. This is Kevin from Epic Gardening. Today we are talking about

Native plants and invasive plants now I did a article a long time ago that just blew up and I didn't really know why.

It was called the 16 invasive species sold at garden centers that you should never

buy. Now at the time I just didn't understand how much people hate invasive species and how many

garden centers would share that thing and say, hey, we don't sell these invasive species.

Come on down to our place.

But anyways, I was recently contacted by Charlotte Edelman and she is the

author of this book called Midwestern native shrubs and trees, gardening alternatives to non-native species.

So this was obviously piqued my interest.

I had done a post on invasive species and here she comes with a beautiful book about all sorts of different species that you can use instead.

And so what I'm going to do today is just run through eight different species that you can use. If you live in the Midwest in the

fall that are just better opportunities and better options than some sort of invasive species that you might

pick up at a garden center unknowingly.

So let's go ahead and run through these quickly.

The first is Choke Berry. So this is a hardy and trouble-free shrub.

Produces beauty all year round and it actually produces food for wildlife as well.

So if you're doing that homesteading thing and you want to attract some beneficial critters to the garden. as well bees

bees love the white flowers.

The red leaves in the fall are actually quite beautiful

and their fruits, the chokeberries themselves,

produce food for 21 different species of birds.

And they actually also provide a habitat

...