LOWER FREDERICK PA – Landscaping with plants that are native to southeastern Pennsylvania is easy, efficient, and healthy for the environment. Those are lessons to be offered Saturday (May 13, 2023) during a special free event titled “Making Native Plants Work,” scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Lower Frederick Township’s Cuddy Park on Colonial Drive.
The event features:
- Penn State Extension-certified master gardeners. They’ll be available to offer advice or help with gardens, native plants, pollinators, no-mow or low-mow yards, raised bed gardening, and adapting gardens for climate change;
- Betsy Nutt, an educator for the Bluebird Society of Pennsylvania. She will speak at 10:30 a.m. in the park pavilion on the life cycle and habitat needs of bluebirds (above), how we can support them, and native plants that songbirds use for food; and
- Lenape Nation educator, Barbara Bluejay Michalski. She will speak at 12:30 p.m. on the importance and traditional use of native plants by the indigenous people of eastern Pennsylvania.
It offers fun for family members too, with face painting by the Engage Arts Studio, supervised leaf printing and making take-home “seed bombs” for distributing native plants. Kids and their parents will be encouraged to “Bomb the Meadow” at the park to help increase the diversity of its perennial native flowers.
If hunger strikes while you’re at the park, a Lumbrada Mexican Cantina food truck also will be available with tacos and other menu items for purchase.
“Making Native Plants Work” is being organized by the township Parks and Recreation Board in collaboration with Bluebird Society, Penn State Extension, and the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania.
In case of rain, the event will be re-scheduled to May 21.
Bluebird box photo by Julie Francis on Unsplash, used under license
Flowers photo by Jael Coon on Unsplash, used under license
