GPMGA H.O.P.E. Initiative

Native Plant Growers Team

Native Plant Growers Team


The Native Plant Growers Team (NPGT) is the newest team in the HOPE initiative’s collection of environmental target groups. Our goal is to make more native plants available to gardeners in our communities. Increasing the native plant population in our gardens will help us create pockets of habitat that serve our pollinators as well as other wildlife.

We’ll be meeting this goal in a variety of ways, including giving plants to friends and selling them as part of our fund raisers. If you know a member of the team, you can probably claim a few samples to plant in your own garden. And of course, we will provide an abundant repertoire of native plants for the big plant sale that occurs during GPMGA’s Spring Garden Fest at the end of April.

Our team’s organizational meeting/workshop occurred in June, 2023 in the backyard of one of our volunteers who maintains an amateur native plant nursery. After discussions about certain plant habits, various propagation techniques, and many related questions, volunteers loaded the van with plants and headed home to experiment in their own native plant nurseries. We plan to meet again in the fall to share our products and to discuss our successes and failures.


native plants native plants
bird habitat

soil team

Exploring the developing roots on a recent cutting


soil team

The team posing with one of our favorite native plants:
Asclepias syriaca, Common Milkweed

soil team

Getting in the van to go work in our own
native plant nurseries




“Out of the long list of nature’s gifts to man, none is perhaps so utterly essential to human life as soil.” – Hugh Hammond Bennett




Virginia Cooperative Extension


Virginia Cooperative Extension is a partnership of Virginia Tech, Virginia State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments. Its programs and employment are open to all, regardless of age, color, disability, sex (including pregnancy), gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, military status, or any other basis protected by law.