In 2021, Kyle Lybarger, a forester and conservationist, was looking for spots to reintroduce Porter’s goldenrod, a bright wildflower that grows on just four known sites in its native Southeast. Near his home in Hartselle, Alabama, Lybarger found just the kind of oak savanna he needed—but it was on private property.
He knocked on the door of the owner, who answered wearing only flip-flops and underwear. Lybarger said, “I was just going to tell you, you have some pretty cool plants out here.” The pair ultimately spent an hour out by the road, as Lybarger, in his winsome drawl, explained to his nearly naked neighbor the value of the native species in his yard. Now his neighbor, who had spent his career mowing lawns, has taken steps to conserve the habitat. When family visits, he shows off his sensitive brier, mountain mint, coreopsis, and butterfly weed.
As a child, Lybarger had run wild in the woods of Morgan County, picking up snakes and discovering the other creatures that shared his habitat. He studied forestry at Alabama A&M and became a forester for the state. As he managed land, he began to realize that “the hundreds of native species that are there already are far better for wildlife than anything I could put there.”
Lybarger began to study the benefits of native plants and the South’s vanishing grasslands and to share what he’s learned. He still knocks on doors, sure, but he sows knowledge further afield, too. His engaging accounts on TikTok (@nativeplanttok) and Instagram (@nativehabitatproject) have almost a million combined followers, and he’s now the CEO and director of the Native Habitat Project, a nonprofit he founded to restore native ecosystems through consultations, prescribed burning services, and more.
His mission took inspiration in part from a crushing loss. In 2017, while he was on his honeymoon—the week he became a husband and stepfather—his own father died unexpectedly. Lybarger’s dad had pushed him to strive for a meaningful life, and his sudden passing reminded Lybarger how fleeting that opportunity is. We can’t protect everything we love, he realized, but it is within our power to protect our ecosystems. “This is something that we can save,” he says. “This is something that we should be proud of.”
Homebase: Hartselle, Alabama
Affiliations: Native Habitat Project
Side Quest: Lybarger encourages anyone who’s curious about native flora to use an app like iNaturalist to get to know local species. “Your best teacher is to get out, walk around, and try to identify what’s around you,” he says. “If something catches your eye, figure out what it is.”
