Our events are announced at least 2 weeks in advance to our email list subscribers. To join our email list, please contact aznpsphoenix@gmail.com.
Our activities are open to Chapter members as well as the general public, unless stated otherwise. If you’re interested in becoming a Chapter member, please view the Membership page. Yearly membership is just $30 for individuals, $15 for students, and $35 for families.
Saturday, January 29th at 4:30 PM
Chapter Meeting: Continuing to Grow Together
We have a growing community of native plant lovers and supporters! So, we’re starting the new year with an interactive meeting to get to know each other better and help shape our vision for the future. During this virtual meeting, we will have our annual Chapter election and productive discussions on the following topics:
Member interests, skills, and availability
Planning of Chapter meetings and field trips
Creating a Chapter logo
Public engagement and outreach about native plants
Volunteer activities in the community
If you would like to participate, register via Zoom at this link to join us in our virtual meeting space. Please note: This meeting will not be recorded.
Additional Events
View the AZNPS Events Calendar to learn about upcoming events hosted by other Chapters throughout the state. Also, recordings of many presentations are available to watch on the AZNPS YouTube page.
Join our virtual community!
To stay up to date on our meetings and other activities, please join our email list.
Follow the AZNPS Phoenix Chapter’s Facebook page for more information about local native plants news, research, and events!
We also invite you to follow our Chapter on Instagram and use the hashtag #aznativeplants to help us raise awareness of Arizona’s amazing native plants!
Seeking native plants to use in landscaping?
Native Landscaping Plants
Fall is the ideal time to add native plants to your yard or patio!
If you would like to learn which plants are native to our area, we invite you to view our Chapter’s List of Recommended Native Landscaping Plants (draft version). It highlights plants that are: 1) native to the Phoenix metro area, 2) beneficial to wildlife, 3) low-water-use, 4) relatively easy to care for, and 5) generally available at local nurseries or seed suppliers.
We’ve compiled a list of metro Phoenix nurseries that generally offer a selection of native plants. Some have more variety than others, and inventory changes frequently or may be seasonal. So, it is best to inquire with a few nurseries by phone or email to determine which one suits your needs. Due to precautionary measures currently in place, please contact a nursery directly to determine if they have special operating hours or procedures.
In addition, several local organizations hold plant sale fundraisers in the Spring and Fall. We’ll update this announcement when local native plant sales take place.
Wildflower Seeds
Monsoon season and fall are terrific times to add wildflower seeds to your landscape, assuming it rains! For a wide variety of Arizona native plant seeds, we recommend the following sources:
Maricopa Native Seed Library – This new local project offers native seeds for free! Similar in format to other seed libraries, the public may obtain up to 3 seed packets per month. Available at several Maricopa Community Colleges libraries.
Little Free “Seed” Library – A Phoenix Chapter member offers free native plants and wildflower seeds as part of a Little Free Library in front of their home in Tempe.
Native Seeds/SEARCH – Purchase seeds online from their conservation farm in southern Arizona.
If you feel there’s a local nursery, native plant fundraiser, or seed supplier we should add to our list, please let us know!
Additional Chapter Announcements
Invasive Species Alert: Fountain Grass
Fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum) is a popular landscaping plant, but a dangerous invasive weed. Its seeds easily spread and invade roadsides, washes, and natural areas. As a result, Fountain grass pushes out native plants and wildlife, disrupts water flow and availability, and increases the risk and severity of wildfires. Therefore, it was listed as an Arizona noxious weed in early 2020 and is no longer sold by the nursery trade.
The Arizona Native Plant Society, along with several partners, created an informational pamphlet to help the community learn how to identify and control Fountain grass. Please download, read, and share this important information with others!
Fountain grass is a popular landscaping plant, but a dangerous invasive weed. If you have it in your landscape, please remove it.
Chapter Leadership
Name
Role
Contact
Lisa Rivera
President
aznpsphoenix@gmail.com
Pam McMillie
Vice President
Danielle Carlock
Treasurer
Kathy Balman
Secretary
Volunteering Opportunities
Want to get involved? We've got just the thing!
Outdoor Opportunities
If you are interested in volunteer activities related to restoration, invasive species control, gardening, conservation, or scientific research, we recommend contacting the following organizations.
These are citizen science and community science projects you can participate in on your own at home, during a walk in your neighborhood, or while visiting Arizona’s public lands.
An iNaturalist project focused on plants found in urban environments. There are also monthly EcoQuest challenges that focus on certain species. Add your photo observations to the project. Or, if plant identification is your superpower, help to ID what others saw!
If you see milkweed plants or monarch butterflies, eggs, or caterpillars while outdoors, take a photo and submit your sighting to this regional project.
Monarchs need milkweed and nectar plants, so hopefully you have these growing in your yard or neighborhood! Join this monarch “tagging” project to help document Western monarch migration.
Access digitized natural history data online to help transcribe and decipher field notebooks, photographs, museum labels, and data sheets from around the world.
Visit one of six local libraries loaning out citizen science tools and supplies.
Chapter News
EcoQuest: Gander at Grasses
Posted on Nov 11, 2021
The Phoenix Chapter collaborated with the Metro Phoenix EcoFlora on their October EcoQuest, Gander at Grasses.
We invited community members to use iNaturalist to observe and identify invasive fountain grass as well as several types of native grasses (Bouteloua, Aristida, Hilaria, and Muhlenbergia) highlighted in a handy native grass guide.
In total, over 140 observations were made of at least 10 different grass species. To see the observations, view the project page on iNaturalist. Also, all observations are still open to identifications. So, we invite you identify any species you can confirm.
Observation of Sixweeks grama (Bouteloua barbata) growing in a crack in the pavement. Photo credit: Lisa Rivera
We also encouraged participants to follow through with suggested calls to action, such as helping to prevent the spread of noxious fountain grass or adding native grass to their outdoor space. If you took action, thank you! We would love to hear about it, so please send us a message to let us know what action(s) you took.
In addition, the Metro Phoenix EcoFlora hosted several free events related to grass identification and fountain grass research. Two presentations are available to watch on the EcoFlora’s YouTube page.
September Meeting: Presentation Video
Posted on Oct 06, 2021
The Maricopa Native Seed Library: Inspiring and equipping the community to create habitat at home
At our September Chapter meeting, we were treated to an excellent presentation about the Maricopa Native Seed Library by its founder, Danielle Carlock. If you missed the presentation or would like to watch it again, it is available on the AZNPS YouTube channel.
The Maricopa Native Seed Library provides free native seed to the community as well as a variety of resources to inspire and equip residents to create habitat at home. In this presentation, Danielle discusses why and how the seed library was founded. Successes and challenges of the first year are highlighted as well as advice for those interested in a similar project. Danielle also shares what’s coming next for their second year and how to use the seed library.
Fall is the perfect time to plant wildflower seeds. So, we hope you’ll take advantage of this local, FREE resource!
Little Free “Seed” Library
Posted on Oct 05, 2021
New free native seed library and plant nursery in Tempe
By Erik Chait, Phoenix Chapter Member
I am happy to announce a new native seed library and plant nursery that I created in front of my home in Tempe.
I realize that many people in the Valley are not originally from here. There is a real lack of knowledge concerning which plants are native. Another other thing restricting people from planting native plants, besides knowledge, is cost. I figured this native Sonoran Desert seed library solved both issues in one package. You know you are getting native plant seeds and they are free!
The current offering of free seeds includes:
Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradia)
Desert Globemallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua)
Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa)
Desert Senna (Senna covesii)
Arizona Caltrop (Kallstroemia grandiflora)
Mexican Hat (Ratibida columnifera)
In mid-October the following flowers will be added:
Please feel free to stop by and help yourself! My native seed library and plant nursery is located near the Loop 101 freeway and Baseline Road in Tempe. For the exact location, please visit the Little Free Library website and search for charter number 129689.
The seed library and nursery are well lit at nighttime if you are not able to stop by during the day. The library and nursery also has its own FM radio station. When you pull up, please tune to 87.9 MHz on your car radio for information about the library and nursery.
