I went to a plant sale being held by a local garden club yesterday. The members were such nice people! But not nearly as knowledgeable about plants as I hoped. They were so sure that the daylilies, lilacs, and Siberian irises they were selling me were native, because they had "just grown there" as volunteer plants. (I wasn’t certain if the first two were native or not until I got home and did some research, myself. Well, foo – at least they were inexpensive.)

They also told me that they weren’t selling anything invasive, at which I pointed out that they were selling barberry.

Is it illegal yet to sell barberry in Massachusetts?

Ah. . . anyway, I couldn’t have met a more well-meaning bunch. I may drop by one of their meetings and see about joining up one of these days. Seems like they could use someone who has an interest in native plants.

Is anyone here a member of a garden club?

Absolutely, a good reason to join. I have introduced many a gardener to native plants and enjoyed watching their interest in natives grow. By the way, we do have native Irises (as you probably know) and next time you could always point that out next time ("you really should see some of the native iris"). I have Iris cristata and Iris verna (such petite blooms!) and Iris fulva (Copper iris).

Here is a picture of my copper iris blooming for the first time this year:

Many garden clubs look to have a speaker now and again for a meeting. stoloniferous, you could offer to speak about native plants to the club. I'm sure if you gave some information on hated and terrible invasives as well as natives that are very nice as garden and landscaping plants it would go over well. If you do a talk, make sure to have at the very least a handout with the common names and botanical names for people to take with them and that they could make notes on during your talk.

FataMorgana

Esh, what a beautiful iris! Nicely photographed, too! I need to research native irises. . . I don’t know anything about them yet. :)

Cheers!