Why Florida Native Plant Month?

A New Initiative

As the weather turns nicer and chapter events start increasing, the Florida Native Plant Society is starting a new initiative for the fall this year.  Welcome to the first ever Florida Native Plant Month!   You can find a list of events at http://fnps.org/news/plantmonth.

The St. Johns County Proclamation of October being Florida's Native Plant Month 
We are working on a coordinated outreach and membership campaign to tell everyone we can find in the state about the work FNPS does.  As part of this, we are building relationships with local elected officials, media and organizations who may not know much about us.


The proclamation document.
There are currently 36 scheduled proclamations across the state for an event FNPS decided to proceed with in late July.  We have already found people that share a similar mindset as FNPS who were not members.  One of the coolest stories so far is a City Commissioner reaching out to us because he wanted to do a Florida Native Plant Month proclamation.

St Johns BOCC Chairwoman Rachael Bennett said “My backyard, much to the dismay of my HOA, looks very much like a natural Florida environment.” A nice touch from the Sea Oats members in attendance to give a loud round of applause after that line!

In Highlands County, we were able to highlight our friends at Archbold Biological Station’s use of native landscaping that won a 2015 FNPS Landscape Award.

Proclamations are purely ceremonial but allow for promotion of the FNPS mission state and reach the general public on the benefits of native plants.  They are a great tool to be in front of your County Commissioners or your city elected officials to talk about native plants and celebrate the work that your chapter does. You may be surprised how many people keep an eye on what happens at their local government meetings.

Tips to use your proclamations: display at plant sales and chapter meetings, press releases with a picture of your members receiving the proclamation to your local media (especially newspapers with an ‘Around Town’ section).

Florida Native Plant Month aids, including press release templates, digital logos and flyers/posters can be found at here. The organizing committee still has some of the original printed posters that can be sent. Remember there are FNPS membership brochures available for you to have at events.

One of the reasons we were able to have printed materials is the support of our generous sponsors that believed in a first year program. Thank you to Conversa, NAUI Green DiverInitiative, and the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

Florida Native Plant Month sponsors:
We thank our sponsors.


Post by Andy Taylor.


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