As every schoolchild learns from Johnny Appleseed, bringing plants to the people is good work.
Since 2002, the Big Bend's Native Plant Society has been spreading the news about native plants. And on Saturday, April 25, the nonprofit will host a plant sale, as part of Earth Day celebrations in Alpine. The sale will feature more than 40 native species, and as many as 1,000 plants.
Planted in a garden or lawn, native plants can reinforce a sense of place. And they provide food and habitat for wildlife – from hummingbirds and solitary native bees to monarch butterflies and more.
But it's not easy to find these plants in a commercial nursery.
At the sale, most of the plants will have been grown from seeds gathered by botanist Michael Eason.
Eason worked for 10 years for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, primarily on a global initiative called the Millennium Seed Bank Project. Botanists gathered seeds around the world, to safeguard wild flora against future extinctions.
Eason and others collected for more than a thousand native plants in Texas. Eason worked extensively in the Trans-Pecos, and in 2006, settled in Alpine. His work with the seed bank ended in 2010. His obsession with collecting seeds did not.
“It's a hard habit to break,” Eason said, “–collecting seeds, so I continue to collect seeds, from various travels or out of my garden or various other gardens here in Marfa, and take those seeds and give those back to the growers, whether that's the Wildflower Center or a handful of nurseries there in Austin.”
Eason has worked with private landowners. But he said the region's roadsides offer abundant opportunities. From years of experience, Eason knows where to find plant populations – and when their seeds can be gathered. He said the Davis Mountains Scenic Loop is especially rich.
“Along the Scenic Loop especially – there are easily 30 species that I know about that are off the roadside,” Eason explained, “and we just stop and collect, and then we'll do Casa Piedra Road, or River Road, and then between here and Del Rio.”
Eason typically gathers about 10 percent of the seeds of a given population – leaving enough for that population to continue to thrive.
One highlight of the plant sale will be Agave havardiana – one of the region's two agave species. Eason gathered the seeds in the Glass Mountains, north of Marathon.
Eason said his top recommendation is penstemons. The sale will include seven to nine species of the flowering native. Eason gathered penstemon species from stony washes near the Rio Grande to the upcountry of the Davis Mountains. He said all of them will thrive in good soil.
“It's really amazing to see these thing come on – right now we have one that is currently in full bloom, and just about the time that one is going to start fading, the next group is going to come on.” Eason continued, “If you plant several different species, you will always have a penstemon in flower.”
Another star at the sale is Asclepias texana – a native milkweed that's an important food source for migrating monarch butterflies.
Eason, and fellow botanist Marc Goff, have developed a new garden at Marfa's Capri and Thunderbird Motel. The garden is home to more than 250 Chihuahuan Desert natives. It could become an important source of native seeds.
Others are working to expand the availability of native plants. The greenhouses at Sul Ross State University are an important resource. And in 2012, Alpine's Borderlands Research Institute launched a program called the Trans-Pecos Native Plant Materials Initiative. The BRI is developing seed stock for 60 native species, and will pass that stock on to commercial growers. The seeds could be used to re-vegetate after wildfires, at roadsides and at oil-well pads.
Earth Day celebrations will be held on Murphy Street, and the plant sale will be at Brown Dog Gardens Saturday, April 25, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Native-plant experts will be on-hand to guide and educate buyers.
“I would definitely like to invite everyone out on Earth Day and come and see what we will have,” Eason said.
The spring sale will focus on herbaceous, green and flowering plants. A fall sale is planned in cooperation with the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute and will focus on perennial shrubs and trees.
Nature Notes is underwritten by the Dixon Water Foundation and is produced by Marfa Public Radio in cooperation with the Sibley Nature Center in Midland, Texas.