Here’s some that I use:

BPlant for finding your ecoregion in the North American continent:
https://bplant.org/regions.php

Chesapeake Bay Watershed (DC, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia) Native Plant Finder:
https://www.allianceforthebay.org/native-plant-center/

Native ground covers for the North American Eastern Temperate Forests:
https://choosenatives.org/articles/plant-native-ground-covers-make-america-green/

Information on creating soft landings under trees for pollinators:
https://www.pollinatorsnativeplants.com/uploads/1/3/9/1/13913231/softlandingskeystonehandout.pdf

These two blog posts (also Eastern Temperate Forests) are probably a looser fit for the wiki, but I’ll share them here anyway. The first discusses why not to be afraid of “aggressive” plants and how to start experimenting. The second has a list of 20 ground covers:
https://www.humanegardener.com/how-to-fight-plants-with-plants/
https://www.humanegardener.com/pulling-stiltgrass/

That sounds like a good start! Next best time to seed and/or plant is the fall. Common blue violets make seeds around then if you want to collect them yourself.

Since you’re so close, I say give something on the list a try. Plants don’t pay attention to our maps anyway :) There’s a search bar at the bottom of the page for each ecoregion where you can plug in the plant name to see if it pops up.

I’m further south than you near the Chesapeake Bay, so hopefully someone else swings by for more specific advice. I do stick by the common blue violet and native wood sorrell suggestion, especially if the area is mowed. Start small and see what sticks, experimenting is part of the process!

That sounds beautiful! Places like Prairie Moon Nursery sell seed in bulk, but it’s better to find local sources if possible. iNaturalist can be good for this. You’d have to look up when they go to seed and be mindful not to over harvest.

Personally, I would test the waters with landscapers using common blue violets and native wood sorrels since they aggressively spread themselves. They can handle a wide variety of conditions and mowing.

You can find your ecoregion here: https://bplant.org/regions.php

For example, I’m in the Eastern Temperate Forests. If you are too, this list can get you started: https://choosenatives.org/articles/plant-native-ground-covers-make-america-green/

Having a lawn for sports is a great use. We should keep what we need for our neighborhoods to enjoy life and play, plant native and edible plants on the rest.

The problem is with lawns that aren’t used except to serve abstract purposes, such as signaling status, adhering to socially conditioned ideas of beauty, or holdovers from the colonial impulse to terraform.

For example, I’ve lived in my home for nearly two decades and have not once seen any neighbor use their front lawn other than to mow it. Many are the same way with their backyards. Blocks and blocks of this type of land use, all over my city. This is what the nolawns movement is about.

Brad Lancaster is a cool dude!

https://www.youtube.com/@Brad_Lancaster_Water_Harvester

https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

Huh? https://storyseedlibrary.org/art/commando-jugendstil-panel-and-tomorrow-sunrise/

Nice! It took me a couple tries too, but I got one soon after a big storm uprooted a bunch of trees.

For wildlife gardens with native plants, leaving the stems is best practice if not in a fire prone area. From the National Wildlife Federation:

Leave seed heads and flower stalks. Like fallen leaves, the stems and seed heads of perennials can be essential habitat for insects—especially some overwintering native bees—long after flowers have faded, says Mizejewski. Come spring, “cut the stems down to 10 or 12 inches, and native bees will nest inside.” If you prune back shrubs such as forsythia or blackberry, whose stems have hollow or pithy cores, bundle those on your property for more bee nesting sites, says Cane. Mizejewski points to an added bonus of saving seed heads until spring: “They will attract goldfinches, chickadees and other songbirds you can enjoy watching all winter.”

There is nothing that stands out to me as unmaintained, only not maintained in the way people are used to. During spring cleanup and throughout the growing season, invasive species can be removed (and many tend to stick out in the winter as well).

Happy to spread the gospel 🙏 I’m surprised it wasn’t already posted here!

🥳 I was hoping they’d get on the fediverse after being booted off youtube.

Greening Your Homeowners Association: Wildlife gardeners are getting HOAs to relax rigid landscaping rules

Direct link to the Maryland bill passed: https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2021RS/bills/hb/hb0322f.pdf

I love these update videos! Most of the stuff I planted two years ago finally started to look like something this summer 😆 but seeing all the monarchs, sootywings, fritillaries, skippers, and so many different bees made the growing pains worth it.

Mr. Trash Wheel is pretty cool:

https://www.mrtrashwheel.com/technology

Most of the flowers are divisions of plants, some volunteers and others I got as plugs in summer 2022. I decided to start small and expand over time. The coneflower was four plants last spring which I divided into 12, then into about 30 this spring. Rose milkweed and late boneset are just as prolific.

I have spread some seeds around and others have blown in. The groundcover in the second photo is all volunteer.

The mulch was leftover from a chipdrop. I used it to make the beds look “intentional” when everything was sparse and muddy back in February :) The plan is for everything to grow so dense that I won’t need to mulch it again.

Watching them flutter around the milkweed, over to my neighbor’s flowers, across the street and back again was beautiful. It was amazing to see one in person. They’re much larger than I imagined and very graceful.

I never took care of the lawn other than mowing it, so much of this stuff was already here in small amounts. Two years ago, I started dividing up the violets and planting them into the grass. They launch seeds up to 4 feet so they quickly spread, clump and bully the grass. Ants move the seeds around too. Last year, I started dividing and transplanting the nimblewill. Panicled aster and late boneset volunteered which pushed out some more.

There’s still plenty of grass closer to my neighbor who treats their lawn. Some I buried in woodchips, the rest I’d like to shade out with edibles and dig out for another rain garden.