Links

There is too much information out there on the internet. It’s enough to drive you crazy sometimes! To save your sanity, here I share a curated list of websites about herbs/useful plants and all their related aspects (such as essential oils, magical plants, pets & herbs, and more). Since I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t – I will also include sites on other Nature topics.

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Foundational Knowledge ~ Some of My Favorite Sites ~ Herb/Useful Plant Sites ~ Medicinal Plants ~ Edible Plants ~ Magical Plants ~ Native Plants ~ Foraging ~ Gardening ~ Plant Databases ~ Aromatherapy & Essential Oils ~ Pets & Herbs ~ Apps for Nature ~ Nature Groups & Societies ~ Find Fellow Herb Lovers ~ Find Fellow Gardeners ~ Invasive Plants ~ At-Risk Plants ~ Herbal Energetics ~ Scientific Studies & Papers ~ Misc.

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Foundational Knowledge

These sites have knowledge I find fundamental for those interested in native plants, herbs, useful plants, or Nature in general.

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Some of My Favorite Sites

I use these sites frequently or really believe in what they represent.

  • Useful Wild Plants Encyclopedia – The website calls the encyclopedia(s) “a botanical gem of the century” which is quite accurate. Anyone interested in useful wild plants NEEDS these encyclopedias. Don’t be scared of the price – they are totally worth it!
  • Native Plant Trust: Go Botany – Though this site is for New England only, it has an excellent visual botanical glossary.
  • Native Plant Society of Texas: Native Plant Database – While not a key-based tool, this searchable database lets you filter by region, plant type, and attributes to find native species suited to your landscape.
  • Foraging Texas – Find detailed posts on over 200 edible and medicinal plants, including cultivated plants. Each plant is shown in multiple, big pictures, as is all the information you need for proper identification. The edible and medicinal uses are listed, as well as range maps for Texas and the United States. Many plants are found throughout the United States (and some even worldwide). The creator of the website also has a companion book (see below).
  • Herbal Reality – An excerpt from their mission statement is the best description of this website: “Our mission is to share traditional, scientific and practical insights into herbal medicine that inspire a deeper understanding of the power of plants and natural healing.” Besides this, I’m a fool for organization and love how their articles are formatted 🙂
  • Wayne’s Word – Tons of interesting articles for plant lovers or just about anyone. A super crazy site!
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Herbs/Useful Plants

These sites cover more than one aspect of herbs/useful plants.

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Medicinal Plants

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Edible Plants

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Magical Plants

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Native Plants

  • Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center – This site hosts Native Plants of North America, the most comprehensive guide to North American native plants in existence, with a free and searchable database of information about more than 25,000 native plants, 80,000 plant images, answers to more than 10,000 plant and natural gardening questions and more. Their Wildflower magazine is a nationally recognized source of native plant information and inspiration for our members.
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Foraging

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Gardening

  • Hardiness Zone Map for the US
  • Hardiness Zones for outside the US
  • Almanac.com – Incredible! Like the print version of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, this site is chock full of helpful information on: gardening, weather, moon & sun, calendar, and food.
  • Garden.org – This site is the largest social media website dedicated exclusively to gardening. There are: online tools that help gardeners connect, teach, share, and trade with each other; the world’s largest database of plants; a catalog of thousands of articles that teach people how to get started gardening and improve their plant growing skills; five free courses anyone can take; etc.
  • Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center – This site hosts Native Plants of North America, the most comprehensive guide to North American native plants in existence, with a free and searchable database of information about more than 25,000 native plants, 80,000 plant images, answers to more than 10,000 plant and natural gardening questions and more. Their Wildflower magazine is a nationally recognized source of native plant information and inspiration for our members.
  • DavesGarden.com – One of the largest gardening sites online, with over 805,000 registered members, from novice gardeners to experienced market growers. Share information, tips, plants and seeds, along with gardening triumphs and trials in this vibrant community or browse (or submit sitings to) the huge databases they have for plants, bugs, and birds.
  • The Plant Native – Here you can find information on Native Plant Societies and Wild Ones groups in the United States and Canada.
  • Melissa K Norris Modern Homesteading – Podcasts and many thorough articles on homesteading topics, including gardening
  • Mother Earth News– Offers free guides, but the best content requires a low-cost subscription. Membership includes full access to the online video learning library, a year of the digital magazines (a bit more for printed), plus unlimited online articles, recipes, project ideas and more.
  • Facebook Group – Herbal Gardening for Beginner Gardeners
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Plant Databases

  • World Flora Online – The title says it all. Digging through this site, you will also find links to many more databases. Some of these are more exhaustive than others.
  • Flora of North America – From their website “Flora of North America (FNA) presents for the first time, in one published reference source, information on the names, taxonomic relationships, continent-wide distributions, and morphological characteristics of all plants native and naturalized found in North America north of Mexico.” All of the encyclopedias are not complete yet, but what is online is wonderful.
  • National Champion Trees – This program catalogs the biggest trees in the US
  • USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service – Has detailed information, including images, and location maps with native/non-native status for each place the plant is found.
  • North American Vascular Flora – BONAP provides in-depth information on the entire vascular flora of the continent north of Mexico, as well as for Hawaii and Puerto Rico. This site offers several databases with extreme amounts of information. A must-visit!
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Aromatherapy & Essential Oils

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Pets & Herbs

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Apps for Nature

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Nature Groups & Societies

  • Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT); Native Plant Society of Texas: Houston Chapter – The Native Plant Society of Texas has branches all over the state—more than 35 of them—and they’re all about celebrating and protecting our native plants and the ecosystems they support. Local chapters put on all kinds of fun things: monthly meet‑ups, plant sales, ID walks, workshops, you name it. It’s a really welcoming, satisfying community to be part of. I’m way out in the boonies now, over two hours from the closest branch, but I’ve been involved a lot in the past and absolutely loved it.
  • The Plant Native – Here you can find information on Native Plant Societies and Wild Ones groups in the United States and Canada.
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Find Fellow Herb Lovers

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Find Fellow Gardeners

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Invasive Plants

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At-Risk Herbs

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Herbal Energetics

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Scientific Studies & Papers

These scientific studies and papers are really interesting!

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Misc.

These don’t fall nicely into any of the other categories.

  • The Plant Native – Here you can find information on Native Plant Societies and Wild Ones groups in the United States and Canada.
  • Tree Climbing – An interesting group in multiple locations.