About the Grower

I'm David, and I run Living Yard Natives from my property in the northwest suburbs of Chicago.

It started with my kids. I wanted butterflies and grasshoppers in the yard. The kind of backyard wildlife that makes childhood memorable. So I went to a big box store and bought flowers with butterfly labels on them. Nothing came. No monarchs. No swallowtails. Barely a skipper.

I started researching and learned the obvious thing nobody tells you at the garden center: most of what they sell is ornamental, not ecological. The insects that evolved here need the plants that evolved here. But finding those plants locally was nearly impossible.

I started tracking down native species wherever I could. Small specialty growers, plant swaps, conservation sales. Then a large flood hit our property, and instead of reseeding with turf, I let the area recover on its own. What came back was remarkable. Common boneset. Late boneset. Goldenrods. Blue vervain. Sedges. Red twig dogwood. American elm. Various Bidens species. Riparian plants that had been waiting in the soil for their chance.

Once I stopped fighting nature, I started seeing what had been there all along. Ferns. Virginia bluebells. Trilliums. Bloodroot. Black cherry. Native species that had been growing in my yard for years. I just hadn't been paying attention.

I started dividing plants and giving them to neighbors. Then more neighbors asked. Then people I'd never met. Eventually demand outgrew what I could divide from the yard. I began starting my own seeds and growing out larger quantities of potted plants. A backyard hobby became a backyard nursery. Today I have over a hundred species of native plants on the property and in production.

I've always had an affinity for plants and ecosystems, but learning the native food web has been a whole new journey. Which insects depend on which plants. How soil biology drives everything. What actually belongs in this region. I've tried to shortcut that learning curve for others by using my tech background to make it easier. I run Living Yard alongside my career developing AI systems, and those two worlds feed each other. That combination is how the Living Yard companion app came to be, along with nursery management software for small mission-driven growers and other tools built to support the native plant movement. The plants keep me grounded in something real.

I live here. I grow here. The plants I sell are adapted to the same clay soil, the same cold snaps, and the same summer heat as your yard. That's the whole point.