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As a tech-saturated culture, we’ve gone full-circle in information life-cycle and what I’ve noticed lately is that auto-scraped-and-dumped misinformation is clogging search feeds. It’s now harder to find vetted, human-written and researched information about native plants online than even a year ago.

It’s time to return to considering book (audio and digital inclusive) and print resources in our default-pathways to information seeking. Published books on native plants remain the most vetted, reliable sources of information and, being analogue, retain their information integrity.

On to the fun part: book recommendations

Learning about native plants is a journey not just of ID’ing a plant, but of learning, slowly, how that plant inter/relates to the rest of it’s native ecosystem. The more-than-human world is a galaxy of interdependencies. Each plant has not-yet-known and/or once-known relationships to soil microbiomes, insects, birds, fungi, moulds, lichens, and the four-leggeds and us, two-leggeds.

I highly recommend you buy all of these from your local independent bookstore. If you can only pick one, let it be this first title:

1. A Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee: Creating Habitat for Native Pollinators: Ontario and Great Lakes Edition

Lorraine Johnson and Sheila Colla created this definitive source that is rich in information, coloured throughout, and highlights which pollinators rely on each plant. Additionally, there are urban and suburban pollinator garden sample designs which are accessible to implement. Most importantly, the interior design and the content lends itsself to being used by everyone. Thoroughly researched, but not academic in style, I return to this regularly.

City of Toronto’s PDF booklet is a hyper-condensed version of the book and serves as a good toe-dipper. The plant information and layout reflects what you find in the more comprehensive book.

2. Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy

You’ll never look at a tree the same way again. This book delves into the inter-connectedness of beings that comprise functional ecosystems. Foundational to the ‘why’ and ‘why it all matters’ to (re)establishing native plant gardens.

3. The New Ontario Naturalized Garden by Lorraine Johnson

This needs to be republished! Woefully out of print, Johnson’s prececessor to “Rusty-patched Bumblebee” contains fantastic pairings of plants based on similar growing conditions – after reading this you won’t accidentally place your cardinal flower next to prickly pear cactus! The book goes deeper in to ethics and deeper considerations and conversations, which I appreciated.

Perhaps your library or an online used book vendor has as copy for you. Highly recommend! In the meantime, it is available on archive.org.

4. Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask: Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings by Mary Siisip Geniuz, Anishinaabe Plant Scientist

Geniusz writes from Menominee, Ho-Chunk and Dakhota and Bodwewadmimwen land currently described as eastern Wisconsin. Her writings are critical for settler people to begin to understand and see plants as entire relationships, as friends, and beings that support and sustain us. The plants can go on without us, but we are dependent on the more-than-human world for our survival. Much of her book comes from teachings from Elder Keewaydinoquay and the stories within are nourishing, enriching. There’s so much in this one book; I return to it often.

5. Braiding Sweetgrass and 6. The Serviceberry

by Robin Wall Kimmerer

If you haven’t already heard about Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing, please pick up a copy of both! Potowatomi scientist and professor, Kimmerer combines Indigenous plant science with euro-centric science. Again, it is a book to reread. Her essay, The Serviceberry, is a manifesto in the gentlest of ways, urging us to adapt the framework of abundance and anchor our lives in reciprocity. This framework is not only part of her own culture, as she describes, but also reflected in the abundance of acorns, berried trees, and in the more-than-human world we belong to. Her essay asks us to critically evaluate our internalized values and Weltanschauung from living in a culture that is anchored in scarcity and values resource guarding, competitive taking.

Recommended Listening:

Future Ecologies Podcast

Emergence Magazine Podcast

Planting for native bees and bugs is important because they don’t fly very far from their nest. The further a bee has to fly, the less productive it will be.

• A large bee like a carpenter bee or bumblebee can fly just over 1.5 km from its nest.
• Medium-sized bees like mining bees fly just under 500 meters. A third the distance of a large bee.
• Small bees like sweat bees stick within 180 metres of their nest and tiny bees only fly less distance than that.

By planting for pollinators and creating habitat, you are making helping bees find food right at home.

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Source: Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide to Conserving North American Bees and Butterflies and Their Habitat

A Hidden Infrastructure is an interactive map for learning about arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, the fungal network that stores carbon in the soil and provides nutrients to plants.

The densest AM networks on Earth are found in grasslands. Montane and flooded grasslands alone account for roughly 40% of global AM fungal network biomass.

Under croplands, AM fungal network densities are on average 47% lower than in non-cropland soils — reflecting the cumulative impact of agriculture on underground ecosystems.

While more work is needed to link specific farming practices to mycorrhizal health, scientists worry that less dense networks diminish a soil’s ability to store carbon, cycle nutrients, and resist stress.

Like any good question: it depends! Mushroom compost can clump, has lots of organic matter, has a high pH, and is high in some minerals. Each plant will respond differently to mushroom compost.

Here’s a helpful breakdown that I found on a poster at a local community garden. Thanks community garden organizers!

This table comments on the nutrient, acidity, and pH contents of compost. Given that every compost source is different, its a good idea to test your soil and compost so you know what you’re changing by adding compost.

Veggie	Mushroom Compost?	Notes
Tomatos	✅ Yes	Benefits from the nutrients and moisture retention.
Peppers	✅ Yes	Thrives with improved drainage and nutrients from compost.
Cucumbers	✅ Yes	Benefits from the nutrients and moisture retention.
Squash (Zucchini, Pumpkin)	✅ Yes	Benefits from the nutrients and moisture retention.
Corn	✅ Yes	Heavy feeder – mushroom compost provides a good nutrient boost.
Lettuce, Leafy Greens	⚠️ Caution	Small amounts help, but too much can make soil too rich or alkaline.
Spinach	🚫 No	Prefers neutral to slightly acidic soil; mushroom compost is often too alkaline.
Carrots	🚫 No	Compost can cause forked roots; best in looser, sandier soil.
Beets	⚠️ Caution	Can tolerate a little, but does not like high acidity. Excess nitrogen, promotes leaves, not roots.
Radishes	⚠️ Caution	Use in moderation to avoid excess nitrogen, which promotes leaves, not roots.
Potatoes	🚫 No	High lime content in mushroom compost increases risk of scab.
Onions & Garlic	⚠️ Caution	Tolerate small amounts but prefer leaner, well-drained soil.
Beans & Peas	⚠️ Caution	Can grow in it, but prefer less rich, neutral soil.
Brassicas (Kale, Broccoli, Cabbage)	✅ Yes	Thrives in the high nitrogen environment from the compost.

Nutrients Profile of Mushroom Compost

Mushroom compost contents can vary depending on where you get it and what types of agriculture are near by. Typically, compost is made using three types of ingredients: a source of carbon like straw, corn cobs, or poultry litter, and a source of nitrogen like manure.

The compost is mounded up and soaked with water so it begins decomposing. Then it’s heated up to inoculate it and prepare it for mushrooms. Once the grower has used the compost for mushrooms, the spent compost is sold at your local garden centre or given away if you’re lucky.

According to the American Mushroom Institute mushroom compost on average is comprised of:

• 2.29% calcium
• 1.24% potash (potassium),
• 1.12% nitrogen
• 1.07% iron
• 0.67% phosphate (phosphorous)
• 0.35% magnesium

Most plants prefer a slightly acidic soil with a pH between 6.0 and 7.0. A pH of 7 is neutral. On average, mushroom compost has a pH of 6.6.

The carbon to nitrogen ratio of soil is important because it indicates the balance between energy sources for beneficial microbes (carbon) and nutrients used to build proteins (nitrogen).

High carbon content will result in higher microbial activity that competes for nitrogen with the plants because the microbes need the nitrogen to consume the carbon-based plant material in the soil.

Soil for growing food should have a carbon to nitrogen ratio of around 24:1. Mushroom compost has 13:1 ratio which means it is high in nitrogen and has a reasonably good content.

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Sources

• https://www.americanmushroom.org/consumers/mushroom-compost-faq/
• https://extension.sdstate.edu/carbon-nitrogen-ratio-healthy-soils
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-to-nitrogen_ratio