Help us make Oregon’s Native Plant Appreciation Month Permanent

We need your help to make Native Plant Appreciation Month permanent in Oregon. Every year we send a proclamation request to the Governor’s Office to proclaim April as Native Plant Appreciation Month. Usually, the governor issues such a proclamation, but it does not always happen. For example, no proclamation was issued for 2023 because the new governor was too busy to issue proclamations early in the year. We celebrated anyway!

Why does having a native plant appreciation month matter? This is NPSO’s largest statewide coordinated public education event. Consequently, it makes more people aware of NPSO and the good we do. Further, it encourages people to go outside and learn about and enjoy our native plants, to plant native gardens, to contribute to citizen science about native plants, and much more. A permanent designation of April as Oregon’s Native Plant Appreciation Month would allow more planning of events around the state and more involvement of partners that want to encourage education about and use of native plants (such as native nurseries). It would also encourage people to be more knowledgeable about native plants as well as the impacts of destructive invasive plant species. Further, it would also support the cultural importance of native plants to our Indigenous communities.

What can you do?
Together with the Portland Garden Club, NPSO is supporting a bill in the 2025 Oregon legislative session. Our chief sponsor is Senator Janeen Sollman and Senator Sara Gelser Blouin, is a co-sponsor. We need more co-sponsors in Oregon’s Senate and House. We want each of you to write to your state senators and representatives and ask them to be a co-sponsor and to notify Senator Sollman of their willingness to be a co-sponsor. We’ve just received the Legislative Counsel’s draft of the bill, and that will be filed in early December. The draft is here: Draft Legislation for Oregon Native Plant Appreciation Month. We’ll update any changes and the bill’s progress on our update page: NPAM Bill Updates.

We have created a template for an email to your senator and representative. You merely need to copy it into your email and add your senator or representative’s information and your own. You can find the template here: Co-sponsor request template. If your senator or representative was not up for election or was reelected, you can find their name and email here: Oregon State Senators and Representatives. Newly elected senators and representatives will be sworn in on approximately January 13, 2025, and will get a government email address then (and the form will be updated). Please let us know who you contact; our email addresses can be found below.

The more people we get as co-sponsors, the more likely our bill is to pass. Similar legislation passed unanimously in California in 2023. While this is not a very controversial resolution, members of the legislature are generally most responsive to the people in their districts, so it is important that everyone sends a request to their state senator and representative.

Have questions?
Email Judi Sanders ju**********@gm***.com or Luci Moody mo***********@gm***.com. Oh, and this will not be NPSO’s only legislative activity this year! – Judi Sanders and Luci Moody