GREEN GOODS natives I t's not often that someone starts a business out of laziness. Donald Gerber, owner of Pollinatives in the San Antonio area and a selfdescribed " lazy gardener, " said he did just that after discovering native plants required less care while attracting butterflies and hummingbirds, his " favorite part " of gardening. " I discovered if you plant the right flowers the hummingbirds will come, and you don't have to do much, " Gerber said. His new love of natives prompted him to join his local native plant society in his then-home state 28 | LAWN & GARDEN RETAILER | MARCH 2024 A need for ves of California, and he quickly discovered that locating native plants to purchase wasn't so easy. " Most retail nurseries only had a few, and they were not well marked, " he said. " You had to be a very wellinformed customer to know what was native. " He found that the best place to buy them was native plant society plant sales; retail nurseries just didn't have much selection. After moving to Texas a few years later, he found the same situation in his local retail nurseries as well - just a handful of natives that were not well marked. But he noticed that Native Plant Society of ves Pollinatives owner Donald Gerber shares why he started his retail nursery and how garden centers can sell more native plants. By Teresa McPherson