April is Native Plant Appreciation Month

Last Updated on April 13, 2024 by Tom Pratum

Plan now for activities in your chapter to help promote NPSO’s mission to support “the enjoyment, conservation, and study of Oregon’s native plants and habitats.” What could your chapter do? Your chapter might lead hikes or walks to view native plants in your area. The chapter could also organize workshops such as how to propagate, grow, or care for specific native plants. Maybe your chapter would like to hold a native plant sale or wildflower show. For those chapters that maintain native gardens, April is an excellent time for spring cleaning and maintenance of that garden. Be creative; what else could your chapter do? Be sure you submit your activities to the Bulletin.

Celebrating Native Plant Appreciation Month can also involve individual activities. For example, you might join a local restoration project. You could also visit a native garden, nursery, or wildflower show. As you are enjoying our better weather that comes with spring, you might add some natives to your garden! Whatever you do, you can share your photos of the activities with other members of NPSO by submitting them to the photo gallery in the Bulletin. (Send photos with the following information: species/event, photographer, names of any people shown in photo, date of photo, location, and any other information you would like to have included in the photo caption to bu**********@gm***.com. Please get consent from any people included in your photo prior to sending it.)

As you are out and about enjoying our native plants, you could join NPSO’s Native Plant Appreciation Month Florablitz 2024 found at: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/npso-s-native-plant-appreciation-month-florablitz-2024 on iNaturalist during April to document wild flowering plants evident in Oregon. You could join as an observer or an identifier and help us record what is happening in our beautiful state. Also, you do not have to “join” the project; you can just submit your observations to iNaturalist, and if they meet the taxa (Angiospermae), dates (April 2024), and location (Oregon) criteria, they will automatically be added to the project. Not yet a member of iNaturalist? You can join here: https://www.inaturalist.org/home and you can find video tutorials on use of iNaturalist here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials. Additionally, a tutorial on iNaturalist created by local users (for the Mt. Pisgah Wildflower Show covering all the things you can do with iNaturalist, discussing how to make better observations, explaining how to use iNaturalist for trip planning and following the blooms, and describing how your posted observations contribute to species discovery, range extensions, and conservation) can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfXsVFFQRvU. Also, a tutorial by NPSO members on being an identifier is here: https://media.oregonstate.edu/media/t/1_r2ci5et0. For questions, email Judi Sanders, ju**********@gm***.com.

Whatever you do, go outside and enjoy our native flora to celebrate Native Plant
Appreciation Month! -Judi Sanders