At The Farm Connection we focus on plants that provide food, medicine, or support native ecosystems, but some plants do it all.
They're feeding pollinators during summer nectar shortages. Holding soil during heavy rains. Pulling nutrients up from deep underground. Providing habitat for beneficial insects. Offering medicine, mulch, food, forage, and fertility while asking for very little in return.
Whether you're building a homestead, planting a food forest, supporting wildlife, or simply trying to grow a healthier garden, it pays to look beyond appearances and start asking a different question:
"What work is this plant doing?"
Because some plants are worth far more than a single harvest or a pretty flower.
Comfrey: The Real GOAT
If you spend enough time around fruit growers, you'll eventually notice comfrey planted beneath fruit and apple trees.
That's not incidental.
Comfrey develops an exceptionally deep root system that reaches well below the rooting zone of many other garden plants. As those roots explore deeper soil layers, they help pull up nutrients such as potassium, calcium, and trace minerals that might otherwise remain inaccessible.
When the large leaves are chopped and dropped around fruit trees, garden beds, or compost piles, those nutrients are returned to the soil surface where they can be recycled back into the system.
The result is a plant that helps suppress weeds, shades soil, reduces moisture loss, supports pollinators, creates mulch, builds compost, and contributes fertility all at the same time.
Unlike common comfrey, our Bocking #4 is a sterile cultivar that does not set viable seed, reducing the risk of unwanted spread. It grows in a defined clump that gradually expands over time, making it easier to manage in intentional plantings such as orchard guilds or designated fertility patches.
It's difficult to find another perennial that earns its space quite as efficiently.
Tulsi: Summer Fuel
When summer heat arrives and many spring flowers have faded, Tulsi is here to save the day for pollinators.
Its nectar-rich blooms attract bees, butterflies, hoverflies, beneficial wasps, and a surprising diversity of pollinators throughout the hottest months of the year. It is often one of the busiest plants in the garden during midsummer.
For gardeners, Tulsi offers fragrant leaves for teas and herbal preparations. For pollinators, it provides a dependable food source when many landscapes begin slowing down.
One of our favorite qualities is its willingness to self-seed. Once established, Tulsi often finds its own place in the garden year after year.
At TFC, we often carry varieties like Vana Tulsi, Kapoor Tulsi, and Amrita Tulsi, each bringing its own growth habit, flavor, and character to the garden.
Mountain Mints: Pollinator Magnet
If the goal is supporting as many pollinators as possible with a single perennial, Mountain Mints belongs near the top of the list.
Its flowers attract native bees, honeybees, butterflies, predatory wasps, hoverflies, beetles, and countless other beneficial insects throughout summer.
That last group deserves special attention.
Many beneficial insects rely on nectar sources like various Mountain Mints as adults before helping control pest populations elsewhere in the garden. Planting Mountain Mints is incredibly easy, as there's a variety for full-sun, part-shade, moist, or dry soil.
Unlike culinary mints that can aggressively take over a garden, Mountain Mints spread more gradually through underground rhizomes. It will happily form a colony over time, but it's generally much easier to manage than peppermint or spearmint.
Give it room to stretch out, and it will reward you with years of pollinator activity.
Mad Dog Skullcap: A Medicinal Native for Difficult Spaces
Every garden has that spot.
Too damp for many herbs. Too awkward for vegetables. Too moist for plants that prefer perfect drainage.
Mad Dog Skullcap thrives where many plants struggle.
Native to much of eastern North America, this beautiful medicinal herb produces delicate blue flowers that attract small native pollinators while filling rain gardens, woodland edges, streambanks, and moist perennial beds.
For generations, herbalists have turned to Skullcap as one of the great calming herbs of North America. It has traditionally been used to support the nervous system, promote relaxation, ease tension, and encourage restful sleep. While many medicinal herbs demand full sun and dry soils, Skullcap offers those benefits while thriving in conditions that can be challenging for other garden plants.
It spreads gradually through rhizomes and can form attractive colonies over time, particularly in consistently moist soil. While it is not generally considered aggressive, it's happiest when given room to naturalize rather than being squeezed into a crowded perennial bed.
For gardeners seeking beauty, pollinator value, and herbal utility, Mad Dog Skullcap brings all three.
Sochan: A Native Appalachian Favorite
Sometimes called Cutleaf Coneflower, Sochan has been gathered and enjoyed throughout Appalachia for generations.
Young spring leaves are edible and highly regarded as a traditional mountain food. As the season progresses, cheerful yellow flowers provide resources for pollinators while deep roots help stabilize soil.
Its upright habit makes it an excellent choice for borders, native plantings, pollinator gardens, and food forests. Sochan performs beautifully in full sun but is also surprisingly adaptable, tolerating part shade with ease.
Like many native perennials, it asks for very little once established while contributing a great deal to the landscape around it.
Elderberry: A Homesteading Must-Have
We may be biased, but we think every homestead should have an elderberry shrub.
The flowers feed pollinators. The berries feed birds. The harvest can become syrups, jams, wines, tinctures, and countless other traditional preparations.
Meanwhile, the shrub itself helps stabilize soil with deep roots, provides wildlife habitat, creates seasonal shade, and contributes structure to the landscape.
Elderberries are productive, beautiful, ecologically valuable, and deeply rooted in Appalachian food and herbal traditions.
That's a hard combination to beat.
Boneset: A Medicine Cabinet & Pollinator Favorite
Stand beside a flowering Boneset in late summer and you'll quickly understand why native plant enthusiasts love it.
The broad clusters of white flowers seem to attract everything. Native bees, butterflies, beneficial wasps, flies, beetles, and countless other pollinators gather on the blooms during a period when many gardens are beginning to slow down.
Historically, Boneset earned its place in herbal traditions long before it earned a place in ornamental gardens. It was widely used throughout North America as a traditional wellness herb, particularly during cold and flu season. Its common name comes from historical use during outbreaks of illnesses that caused severe body aches, where it was often relied upon as a comforting tea.
In the landscape, Boneset excels in moist soils, rain gardens, pond edges, and low areas that stay consistently damp. It can reach four to six feet tall and will happily self-seed when conditions suit it. For gardeners hoping to keep it contained, deadheading spent flowers before seed set is usually enough to keep populations manageable.
If you have room for a taller native perennial, Boneset delivers wildlife value, medicinal history, and late-season pollinator support all in a single plant.
Native Grasses: Nature's Rebar
Native grasses may be among the most important plants in the entire landscape.
Big Bluestem can send roots 10 to 12 feet into the soil. Switchgrass often reaches similar depths. Little Bluestem routinely develops root systems many times deeper than conventional turf grasses.
Below ground, those roots create an enormous living framework that improves water infiltration, builds organic matter, supports microbial life, reduces erosion, and helps landscapes withstand both drought and heavy rain.
Above ground, native grasses provide nesting material, shelter, winter habitat, and food sources for wildlife.
They're not simply ornamental plants.
They're infrastructure.
Clover: More Than a Cover Crop
Few plants offer a better return on investment than clover.
Dutch White Clover is a perennial that stays relatively low and makes an excellent living mulch between garden beds, orchard rows, and pathways.
Medium Red Clover grows taller, produces more biomass, and is often favored for building soil and feeding pollinators.
Crimson Clover is one of the most beautiful options, producing striking red blooms while adding organic matter and seasonal color, growing as a biennial.
All three help protect soil, reduce erosion, feed pollinators, suppress weeds, and partner with beneficial bacteria to fix atmospheric nitrogen.
The best groundcovers don't just cover ground.
They improve it.
Yarrow: The Team Player
Yarrow contributes almost everywhere it's planted.
Its flowers attract beneficial insects, including predatory wasps, hoverflies, and native pollinators. Its roots help improve soil structure. Its foliage has a long history of skin care and medicinal use, and its blooms make excellent additions to cut flower arrangements and dried bouquets.
Yarrow is remarkably drought tolerant once established and performs well in poor soils where many other plants struggle.
In a landscape designed for resilience, it's one of those plants that really dazzles.
Planting With Purpose
The most productive plants aren't necessarily the ones producing the most fruit or the biggest flowers.
They're the ones that give back in a multitude of ways.
A fruit tree feeding a family. Clover feeding the soil beneath it. Mountain Mint supporting beneficial insects. Elderberries feeding birds. Native grasses holding a hillside in place. Comfrey cycling nutrients back into the system.
When plants perform multiple jobs, gardens become more resilient, more productive, and often easier to manage.
