Spring is for California Native Plant Sales
by Roger Snell
That's right! Spring is one of only two times that you can go to a California Native Plant Society plant sale and the other is in the fall. High Ranch Nursery was proud to participate in our local chapter's plant sales this April.
The first was the El Dorado Chapter sale at the Placer County Fairgrounds. It was fortunate that the fairgrounds was having a big yard sale, because lots of people who might not have known about it were welcomed by the wonderful people of the El Dorado CNPS. I talked with many people who just stopped by and ended up buying some plants. I think a few new native plant lovers were won over by the helpfulness of everyone that volunteered to make it such a nice event.?
The next sale was the Sacramento Valley Chapter's Wildflower Wonders event and sale at the Earth Day festival in Downtown Sacramento, where cool, old Southside park was inundated with every earth-friendly product, person and reggae band in Sacramento County. The Sacramento chapter held seminars on gardening with natives, attracting birds and many other subjects. They had an incredible display of local flora and their habitats, combined with a plant sale that featured the plants native to the American River Parkway. Quite an undertaking, which they pulled off with their group of organized, devoted volunteers. Lots of people were very interested in what they could do to create native habitats in their own yards. The highlight for me was when a really nice young Native American man stopped by and gave us an impromptu seminar on the uses and importance of the plants to his ancestors and himself.
The last sale for us was the Redbud Chapter of Placer County’s sale, held in the Sierra College parking lot. The Redbud chapter pride’s itself in having the largest selection of any other sale and accomplished their goal in spades. I’ve not seen such variety in one space anywhere before. It was raining, but that didn’t dampen the moods of the native plant lover’s that were their to add another beauty to their yards. The Redbud chapter had the most wonderful display of native plants, most in bloom, from the collection of Chet Blackburn. There must have been two hundred plus living, growing plants to examine at your own pace. Chet is one of the authors and photographers of the Redbud chapter’s book “Wildflowers of Nevada and Placer Counties, California”, a must have for your library.
The next chance to attend one of these wonderful events put on by our local CNPS chapters is in the fall. Keep your eyes on our newsletter and when the dates are set you’ll be the first to know.
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