What is plant sociability?

In our native plant profiles, we use Benjamin Vogt’s plant sociability rating.

Here are his definitions for sociability:

  1. a clumper that slowly expands over time
  2. a light sower, moderate-root runner, may create small groups of plants or new plants may pop up sparsely here and there.
  3. larger masses of plants that develop more quickly, and / or may create those same masses in more areas of the landscape.
  4. a species that, if given ideal habitat, will dominate other species and perhaps the landscape over time.

Sociability is always going to depend on a plant being in optimal conditions for its growth – a plant that is meant for sunny sites may be a 3 in the sun but a 2 if planted in shade. We’ve done our best on this site to rate each plant based on its optimal conditions.

If you’d like to learn more about plant sociability, here’s a few great posts: