More homeowners than ever before are adding native plants to their gardens. This book shares the best plant choices for the Northeast and details how gardeners can grow them successfully.

The New York metropolitan area has well over 500 woody plant species growing without cultivation in its wild flora, and the species composition and distributions of these species are changing. For example, numerous native species that were once common are today exceedingly rare. Conversely, many introduced, nonnative species are becoming increasingly common. A new manual was deemed necessary to document these and other changes in the New York Metropolitan Region, which encompasses 25 counties within a radius of 80.5 km of New York, NY. We used records developed by the New York Metropolitan Flora project (started in 1989 by Steve Clemants of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden) to organize a manual of woody plants for the region. The 370,000 plant species records used come from 3 main sources: collections made in the field, observations made in the field, and published data. We compared records from two time periods for each species: 1990 through 2013 and all years prior to 1990. Distribution maps highlight the decline or spread of species and species groups across the two time periods. In addition, species with 10 records or more have a detailed description of the species' identification, nativity, phenology, ecology, biology, change in distribution, cultivation and management (for native species), management (for invasive nonnative species), and economic and medicinal uses. Associated dichotomous keys are also included. This information provides taxonomic, biological, and ecological background that may help explain increasing or decreasing trends and shared patterns and histories with other species in the region. This manual covers 443 species in detail, with 362 distribution maps and 178 illustrations depicting 334 species. It briefly mentions 89 other woody species.