Native Plants Save the Day!

Once again, the Sparrowhawk & Friends of Baltimore Woods Native Plant Sale helped to distribute thousands of new plants into Portland gardens this April. 

Thank you to all the volunteers, the FOBW board and owners of Sparrowhawk Native Plants who helped to make this spring plant sale another glowing, or should we say, growing success! This year 8,550 native plants were purchased to be planted in Portland landscapes, including the St Johns neighborhood. 

Approximately, 534 people placed plant orders and FOBW earned $4,000 from this event. This is our only annual fundraiser, and helps with our mission of preserving a North Portland nature corridor scheduled to be aligned with the future NP Willamette Greenway from the downtown Esplanade to Kelly Point Park. The funds fill our coffers for year round habitat restoration work in Baltimore Woods.

Native plants are a win-win option for your garden providing habitat for native insects, bees and butterflies, which in turn pollinate vegetable flowers, fruit trees and shrubs and also provide essential nourishment to wildlife including birds, those beautiful springtime serenaders. Natives are also naturally adapted to the climate variations of local ecosystems, and can withstand drought conditions better than non-natives.

In recent years, Nikkie West and Tracy Cozine, the owners of Sparrowhawk Native Plants, have partnered with FOBW for our annual plant sale and their superior organization skills and hiring of additional temporary staff, makes this big job more manageable.

Thankfully the beautiful St Johns Church parking lot space on North Charleston Street, the sale location in St Johns, has a wall of tall native cedar trees that naturally cooled and shaded the potted plants during the unusually warm spring days of the sale. The white Sparrowhawk canopies provided shade but not the cooling effect of the trees! A reminder that one of the best options for cooling our planet is planting more native plants and trees!