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Helia Native Nursery takes the growing of native plants to a new level. Unlike most of its retail competitors, Helia doesn’t purchase its plants from often distant wholesale nurseries. Instead, it starts with seed it collects from populations growing in its region, to ensure that the resulting plants are adapted to local conditions and the local wildlife. When designing a landscape for a house about to be built, Helia may rescue plants off the site before it is cleared, so that the eventual integration of the designed landscape with its context will be seamless. Likewise, the seed bank Helia maintains is low-tech, but innovative. An array of local plants, selected for diversity, are field grown so that the genetics are stimulated to evolve along with the current changes in the local climate and conditions. Although it serves the local gardening community in many ways, Helia’s most important accomplishment may be the redefinition of the role of the local plant nursery.
