Beehive Cactus (Echinocereus coccineus), photo by Elroy LimmerThe Gila Native Plant Society (GNPS) is urging gardeners to come to its annual native plant sale on Saturday, August 16, 2025. It will be held from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm in the parking lot on the corner of 12th and Pope Streets, across from Gough Park. Five native plant vendors from New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado will be selling a wide variety of native trees, shrubs, perennial flowers, grasses, cacti, succulents and vines. Purchasers can select the plants they want and discuss their placement and care with native plant growers. Cash and checks only, please. The sale is open to all.
Golden Columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha), photo by Elroy LimmerWhy plant native plants? They are adapted to the specific conditions of our area‒ its soils, sunshine, and moisture levels‒and are more drought-tolerant than most non-natives. Native plants have long-standing relationships with native pollinators, birds and other wildlife, providing food and shelter. And they are beautiful. If you want to see what some mature native plants look like, take a stroll in the Silva Creek Botanical Garden, maintained by GNPS, on Virginia Street, two blocks north of Highway 180.
Wright's Silktassel (Garryea wrightii) Photos courtesy of the Dale A. Zimmerman Herbarium, WNMUThe GNPS native plant sale this year will be one of the biggest in the Southwest. Look for plants both common and unusual, but all native and adapted to our region. We have found that in the Southwest the monsoon season is the best time to plant. Incidentally, the event is not designed as a fundraiser for GNPS -- all proceeds of plant sales will go to the vendors. The aim of the Gila Native Plant Society is to get as many native plants in as many gardens as possible and to support the nurseries that propagate them – a rare species.
Honey Hawk Homestead in the Mimbres will be offering decorative native grasses for landscaping, as well as a selection of shrubs, including the beautiful Golden Currant. The Upper Gila Watershed Alliance (UGWA) has developed a tree nursery to support its restoration projects and will be offering some of its trees for sale, all native to our area. 
Golden Currant (Ribes aureum ) Photos courtesy of the Dale A. Zimmerman Herbarium, WNMUSilver City is fortunate to have an extensive native plant nursery nearby, Lone Mountain Natives, which will be at the sale with a wide assortment of native perennial flowers, shrubs and trees as well as seeds for some of those species.
We have also attracted native plant growers from nearby Arizona and Colorado. Gila Watershed Partnership in Safford is a contract grower for BLM and Forest Service restoration projects, and its nurseries are overflowing with plants that will enhance our gardens, including the hard-to-find Wright's Silktassel. For the first time this year, Ethical Desert of Pueblo Colorado, a specialist in cold-hardly cacti and succulents – and also penstemons! – will participate in our native plant sale; their plants are painstakingly propagated from seeds.
Mexican Catchfly (Silene laciniata) Photo courtesy of Elroy LimmerThe Gila Native Plant Society invites the community to come to the parking lot next to Gough Park on Saturday, August 16th, to talk about native plants and acquire some for the garden. For more information and a partial list of the plants that will be available for sale, check the Gila Native Plant Society website: https://gilanps.org/native-plant-sale-2025/
