If you’ve been a subscriber to this blog for a while, you’ve read about my involvement with native plant sales through Wild Ones. Every year we have a big sale in May, and that sale has continued to get bigger each year as the native plant movement spreads and more people begin to understand why they’re important.

Encouraged by the success of the spring sales and the high demand for native plants in our area, we had our first ever FALL native plant sale last weekend. In addition to our primary plant supplier, the amazing Blue Creek Native Seed Nursery, we invited several small local growers to participate as well. It’s our way of supporting small businesses and ensuring that there are enough sources of native plants locally. In addition, the students at the University of Toledo provide us with plants from their GUTS program (Greening UToledo Through Service Learning). Our Wild Ones Oak Openings Region chapter receives one dollar per plant sold, with all the rest going back to the growers. I think it’s a fantastic deal for them. We organize the whole thing and our members work as volunteers to sell their plants. It’s a win-win situation: We win because it serves our mission of getting more native plants in the ground, and they win by earning money to continue growing natives.

Knowing that some of the plants would be showing signs of entering dormancy at this time of the year, we worked hard to educate our customers about the value of a healthy root system, and explain that they weren’t buying the top-growth, but rather the root system for next season. We also taught them the benefits of planting in the fall, giving the plants a head start going into next year’s growing season.

Our spring sales are two days long, but our fall sale was just one day. And it turned out to be a gray day with occasional showers and a cold wind. As expected, there was less foot traffic for this sale, but we were nevertheless pleased with the number of plants and seed packets that we got out into our community once again. I think we’ll continue to tweak our marketing and education efforts and try the fall sale again next year.

My primary job during the actual sale days is to supervise our cashiers and other volunteers, but I have plenty of time to roam around and answer customer questions as well. The first few times I worked a plant sale I didn’t think I knew enough to answer plant questions, but it turns out that you have to just jump in and do the best you can. And there are always other more-knowledgeable people around to help me if I get stuck. After six years of native gardening at home, I’m more confident about that part now, and I have some rewarding conversations with people as they shop.

There’s one particular person who stands out from this event, a woman who came in looking uncertain. I walked up to her and started giving her my standard “welcome to our sale” talk, and explained how to find and choose plants, and she said “I don’t know anything about native plants.” Apparently her neighbor had talked to her about them enough to arouse her curiosity, and so she just showed up to take a look around. At this point I backtracked a bit and gave her a quick tutorial about native plants. As I explained about their deep root systems and how they need less watering and store more carbon, and how they feed the insects and birds much better, her face lit up and she got excited. That moment will stick with me for a long time. She grabbed a shopping bin and I connected her with one of our other volunteers to help her pick some plants. She left the sale with a half dozen plants and a great deal of enthusiasm, and I’m still smiling as I remember that encounter.

I often think that if I could have another lifetime I’d choose to spend it as a teacher because I get enormous satisfaction from seeing the lightbulb come on when someone grasps a new concept or way of doing something. That’s a moment that enriches both lives at the same time, isn’t it? I’m not sure why the teaching career path didn’t occur to me earlier in life, but I’m making up for that missed opportunity now by using my writing to teach about native plants and insects. I strongly believe that if more people took the time to learn about the key relationships in the natural world, we’d all be better off. I still remember the moment I learned that many insects can only eat certain plants; that changed the world for me. It upended my view of gardening and I now choose plants mostly because they’ll benefit the insects and other wildlife, rather than because they’re pretty to human eyes.

In this time when insects and birds are declining partly because of habitat loss, our gardens need to be beneficial parts of the ecosystem, supporting life rather than serving simply as pretty things for us to look at. It feels right to actively share “my” property with the non-humans who are also entitled to live their lives here. I try to remember that they were here before us and they’ll be here after we’re gone. Truthfully, it’s more “their” property than it is mine.

And as I saw this weekend, all it takes to pique a neighbor’s curiosity is to talk to them about your native garden. They might roll their eyes at you the first time (been there, done that), but if you keep up your gentle efforts to educate, you could turn on that lightbulb for them too.

Notes:

If you want to learn the basics about native plants and how they’re important to wildlife, I recommend you start with Doug Tallamy’s book, “Bringing Nature Home.” This is the book that started me on my journey.