Native Plant Sale Celebrates 10 Years of Native Plant Outreach
April 18, 2014

PHILADELPHIA � On a recent afternoon, Melissa Nase, Manager of Land Stewardship, stood in the soft light of the greenhouse and transplanted seedlings. These native ferns are some of the more than 4,000 plants that will be for sale at the upcoming Native Plant Sale on May 3 � 4. This spring marks 10 years of offering unique native plants to area landscapers and gardeners. Over the past decade, the Schuylkill Center has put tens of thousands of plants into gardeners' hands in the area, helping to rebuild the region's native biodiversity.

The plant sale provides gardeners a bonanza of plants to choose from, with an incredible range of native herbaceous plants, shrubs, grasses, ferns, vines, trees, and starts for vegetable and herb gardens. This year, the Schuylkill Center is also offering new ready-to-plant garden kits. The kits contain a mixture of native plants curated to give any gardener a jump-start with either a deer resistant garden or a pollinator friendly garden.

Native plants play a special role in their ecosystems: they tend to foster many more insect species than invasive and non-native plants, in turn providing a food source to birds and other wildlife. For example, oak trees native to this region support a remarkable 537 species of caterpillar, providing a crucial habitat for a huge number of insects. For comparison, gingko trees, a non-native plant brought to the Americas over 200 years ago, support only three types of caterpillar. Those caterpillars become a key part of a bird's diet, especially young birds in the nest; a tree that supports more caterpillars, supports more birds.

This is why native plants matter: they are an essential part of a healthy ecosystem, promoting biodiversity. Nase explains, "Over thousands of years, native plants and wildlife evolved and adapted alongside each other, developing interdependency and mutually-beneficial relationships in order to survive. Non-native and invasive plants disrupt these relationships, unsettling an otherwise balanced system." That balanced system, providing habitats for a large biological community, is crucial for healthy ecosystems locally, regionally, and globally.

The last few years have highlighted this crucial balance, and the risks of compromising it, in the form of the beloved monarch butterfly. Monarch populations are suffering a radical decline. This moment illustrates why planting native plants matters so much. Native milkweed is the sole food for monarch caterpillars. With less milkweed available � due to genetically modified crops, heavy pesticide usage, and loss of hedgerows on many farms � there are fewer and fewer places for monarchs to lay their eggs and for the caterpillars to feed. Planting milkweed is a first step any gardener can take, something simple and easy which could have a profound impact.

The Native Plant Sale is deeply rooted in the Schuylkill Center's educational mission to inspire meaningful connections between people and nature. Through engaging volunteers as well as landscapers and gardeners, the Center works to increase awareness and convey the importance of using native plants. Nase remarks that there is growing interest in the cultivation of native plants, noting other similar sales in the area and increasing demand for the plants. A movement, it seems, is catching on.

Nase is excited that the Schuylkill Center is a part of this movement. But Nase's vision goes beyond providing high quality planting materials and native plants at the sales and for the Schuylkill Center's restoration work; she imagines developing a seed collection and propagation program, allowing the plants grown in the nursery and used in restoration projects to originate at the Center. "Seed collection and propagation would allow us to fill a missing link in our growing process. It would contribute to the overall sustainability of our land stewardship program, cut our costs, and assist our restoration efforts."

What: 10th Annual Native Plant Sale
When: Saturday, May 3, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm
Sunday, May 4, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Where: Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education
8480 Hagy's Mill Road
Philadelphia, PA 19128

View maps & get directions to the Schuylkill Center.

Get Directions to the Schuylkill Center