Marshall Native Gardens to host inaugural Native Plant Festival

MARSHALL - Every spring, a number of organizations throughout Madison County host plant sales to help raise funds for their respective outlets.

This year, not only did one local organization decide to hold a plant sale in the fall, but the group will host a festival aimed at educating local residents on the benefits of the county's native plants.

Marshall Native Gardens will host its inaugural Fall Native Plant Festival Oct. 1 at the Madison County Public Library's Marshall location. The gardens are located on the 4.2-acre grounds of the library and are open to the public free of charge. Founded in 2011, the native garden was envisioned, designed, constructed, and is maintained by Marshall Native Gardens Initiative in cooperation with the county and Madison County Library Director Kim Bellofatto.

Ed McNally is Marshall Native Gardens' coordinator and landscape architect.

"We have had about nine years where we've had an annual spring plant sale," McNally said. "It's been a plant sale with food and music. We sell plants to make our money for the year at the event."

This year, the organization is expanding its services to provide free talks on topics such as landscaping with native plants, meadow building, invasive vegetation management strategies and the benefits of native plants for native birds.

Educational outreach

The butterfly garden at the Marshall library campus is just one of 11 themed gardens - including a rain garden, medicinal garden and bird garden - featured in the Marshall Native Gardens.

According to McNally, the motivation for starting a native garden was initiated in 2010 by Kathleen Phillips, a former county library director, after library staff began noticing invasive species creeping up on the property.

"(Phillips) recognized the invasive species, and she said, 'Is there some way we can have a task force to address that?' So we did," McNally said. "There were six of us who met three or four times over three months, and we came up with a recommendation of it. We wanted to do native plants. Out of that, came the group Marshall Native Gardens Initiative, which is all volunteers. We started doing a strategic plan and a master plan, and we started implementing it."

Most recently, the all-volunteer organization's strategic plan's focus has shifted from construction and maintenance of the gardens to public outreach and education, according to McNally.

The festival is part of Marshall Native Gardens' broader shift toward providing educational opportunities for children and adults in the county.

Rita Pelczar is the organization's education and outreach committee chair.

"We're trying to really enhance the mission of the gardens to become an educational facility for children and for adults," Pelczar said. "We're hoping that the Native Plant Festival increases public awareness of the gardens. If it's successful, it's more likely that we'll have local participation."

Pelczar said Marshall Native Gardens is hoping to develop working partnerships with Madison County Schools.

"We'd like the facility as an outdoor classroom," Pelczar said. "We'd like other (organizations), such as the Extension Office to use our gardens for teaching. We will do some of the teaching, but we will also get speakers from various places, such as the Audubon Society, and different native plant experts to come in and give programs. But, in addition to that, we'd like people to just make use of the facility, because it's pretty special."

Shelton Laurel resident Nathan Buchanan, who owns Wildbud Natives, a conservation nursery formed in 2016 that grows native plants for restoration and conservation uses, is one of the four scheduled speakers at the festival.

According to Buchanan, the festival's fall schedule allows the organizers to better inform the public about native plant practices.

"I think it's really important that it's expanded to a festival because number one, the placement of this festival in early fall conveys that the best time to plant any perennial plant, tree or shrub is really in the fall, even though that's counterintuitive because we all rush to the store in spring when everything's beautiful and in bloom," Buchanan said. "Beyond just the education of the public about the timing of when to plant things, I think it's great that we're providing education about the benefit of native plants, and how functional they are in addition to their beauty."

Importance of native plants

Scott Moore is president of the Madison County Garden Club, which was founded in 2019 to oversee the maintenance and design of the Marshall Native Gardens.

Moore said the festival will help local residents understand the importance of native plants to the local ecosystem.

"I think the public in general has become aware of the importance of native plants in the environment," Moore said. "With global warming and all of the ecological challenges that we have, I think people have really become attuned to, 'What can I do to make a difference?' Native plants are one of those things that people automatically understand when you explain to them the importance of native plants. There's a native plant wave throughout the entire United States, and Madison County has been no exception to that. It's really gratifying.

"When we teach people about the benefits of planting native, it's an easy concept to grasp. By planting native and educating the public, I think we benefit the local community and the local ecology."

For Buchanan, the inaugural festival affords local residents the opportunity to impact change in their backyards, while at the same time gaining access to new knowledge and useful gardening tricks.

"It's important to have this as an educational festival because every person can do really important things to address ecological problems, and that's plant native plants on your property," Buchanan said. "You'd be amazed what kind of beauty and wildlife you bring to your own property that you get to enjoy, but you're also doing something concrete and tangible toward this larger ecosystem problem that we're facing.

"We live in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There are plants here that are found nowhere else on Earth."

McNally estimates that the Marshall Native Gardens, which features interactive plant identification technology, will label upward of 380 native plant species at the Oct. 1 festival.

"It's a celebration of how much we love our home, and all the beautiful things about it," Buchanan said. "It's funny that we would go to (garden stores) and buy plants from Asia, when we live in one of the most unique and beautiful places on Earth."

Marshall Native Gardens' Fall Native Plant Festival will take place Oct. 1, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Madison County Public Library's Marshall branch, located at 1335 N. Main St. in Marshall.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Marshall Native Gardens to host inaugural Native Plant Festival