UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center is encouraging home gardeners to make their yards more bird and pollinator friendly at its annual native plant sale.
The native plant sale, which runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 29, is being held in partnership with the Student Farm at Penn State. Plant sales will continue at Shaver’s Creek during the week until all plants are sold.
Twenty-six native plant species will be on sale, the most the center has ever offered, said Doug Wentzel, a program director, instructor and naturalist at Shaver’s Creek.
“In our region native plants support native wildlife, so it just makes sense,” he said.
A list of native plants that will be sold can be found here. The plants will be available for $7.50 each, or three for $20.
Wentzel and other native plant enthusiasts will be at the sale to help visitors choose plants that are right for the conditions in their yards.
The native plants are germinated at Tait Farm, in Centre Hall, then transferred to the Student Farm. They include milkweed, which supports monarch butterfly larvae and other insects, and the cardinal flower, which attracts ruby-throated hummingbirds, among many others.
Native plants “support a whole variety of life,” Wentzel said. “They fit in the whole web of life in your backyard.”
Growing native plants is an easy way to help native birds, which are under threat, Wentzel said. The North American bird population has declined by nearly 3 billion since 1970, according to a 2019 study in the journal Science.
One black-cap chickadee family eats more than 5,000 caterpillars in one season, for example, “so you need plants that provide those caterpillars home,” Wentzel said.
Non-native plants, on the other hand, are often not recognized as food by insects or birds, and can cause ecological damage by crowding out native plants.
Shaver’s Creek has partnered with the Student Farm since 2019 to offer native plants for sale.
Native plants also will be available for purchase during the Student Farm Club plant sale from noon to 5 p.m. on Friday, April 28, in Headhouse II on the University Park campus