About Driftless Area Natives
Meet the grower
I'm Aric Sampson, a licensed Professional Landscape Architect (PLA) in Wisconsin. I've also taught Plant Identification in the Horticulture program at Western Technical College.
I've been growing plants since I was a kid, and native plants hooked me early. Today I grow them for the Driftless region from locally collected seed.
Why plant native plants?
Walk around most neighborhoods and you'll see a few non-native shrubs in a sea of mowed lawn. That kind of landscape feeds almost nothing. Native plants feed birds, bees, butterflies and everything in between, and because they evolved here, they're often more drought-tolerant and resilient once established.
How it all started...
Joyce Cielecki and Michael Pelech founded Driftless Area Natives in 2015 to provide quality native plants and teach sustainable landscaping. I took over the nursery in late 2021, and 2022 was my first growing season. Today D.A.N. grows 140+ native species from locally sourced seed, without synthetic fertilizers, with a focus on plants for pollinators and other beneficial insects.
Where we work: We sell at farmers markets around La Crosse and Trempealeau and serve the Driftless region of southwest Wisconsin and southeast Minnesota. Plant kits ship anywhere in Wisconsin.