STASH to host Native Plant Festival
Apr. 6—Living in Oklahoma can make gardening tough.
Drought, flood, frost and extreme heat are no strangers to the state, and many plants aren't hardy enough to deal with the weather's breakneck mood swings. But Norman's first annual Native Plant Festival, hosted at STASH, aims to get plants that thrive despite Oklahoma's capricious nature into your gardens.
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 13, six local nurseries that specialize in plants native to Oklahoma will not only be selling their plants, but educating customers about the plants' roles in the ecosystem. Native plants are not only hardy to Oklahoma's varying climate, but also provide homes and food for songbirds and pollinators such as butterflies, bees and moths.
"We started growing native plants for that reason, because they were adapted to the Oklahoma climate, which is always too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too windy, too dusty, whatever," said Bill Farris, the proprietor of Prairie Wind Nursery, one of the featured growers.
But as he learned more about the decline in pollinator and songbird populations due to habitat loss — monarch butterfly populations, for example, have declined by as much as 60% over the past year — Farris found a new reason to promote native plants.
"When the pollinator crisis and the problems that the monarchs were having came along, we were already growing these plants, we just started growing them for different reasons," Farris said.
STASH has hosted native plant pop-up shops before, which STASH owner Becca Bean says were hits with the community.
"Norman in particular has always been super supportive of our events, and none more so than when we've hosted native plant growers. They usually sell out," Bean said. "Often we would have people lined up 30 minutes before, while they're still unpacking plants."
When Farris approached Bean earlier this year with the idea to throw a bigger event featuring more growers, it seemed to her like a natural progression of the popular pop-up shops.
All six featured growers are part of the Oklahoma Native Plant Network, a coalition of growers dedicated to conserving and restoring Oklahoma's native plant ecologies.
"Our main goal is public education, awareness and sales events, so that the public can have access to native plants," said Farris, who co-founded the Oklahoma Native Plant Network. "The other goal that we're trying to achieve is we're creating a database that will connect landscape architects [and] landscape contractors with growers."
Bean said the six featured growers have come from as far as Edmond.
"Some of them are newer to the scene, but Marilyn [Stewart of Wild Things Nursery] and Bill have been growing plants for 30, 40 years. They have literally dedicated their lives to getting the message out about the importance of supporting our pollinators," Bean said.
The festival won't just feature growers. Three bands — Jahruba and Friends, Flying Armadillo, and Franklin Road Bluegrass Collective — will perform throughout the day, and several food trucks will set up shop.
Additionally, nonprofit organizations including the Oklahoma Native Plant Society, Okies for Monarchs and Wild Care will have educational booths about the importance of native plant life.
Bean said part of STASH's mission is to "connect people with good things going on in our community," and frankly she does not expect her store will break even on the day. But to Bean, it's worth it to put out an event she sees as beneficial to Norman.
"We want to keep the booth fees really low for the participating growers, because we see what they're doing is really a service to our community," Bean said. "If we end up being upside down a bit on what we pay the bands, or guarantees from food trucks or whatever, none of that really matters any more than putting these good opportunities out in front of the people who support us all year round."
