Photo taken by MaryAnn McCrary.
Plant sale season rolls into May
We expect the Spring Sale in mid-April to be our big event of the year. But April and May together are really Plant Sale Season, with outdoor festivals and opportunities to buy our plants happening nearly every weekend through the Siskiyou County Mother’s Day Wildflower Show in Yreka.
To make connecting with our nursery easier, the online store is now reopened and will stay open until 2 PM on Thursday, May 29. You can shop the May Sale at this link: https://cnps-shasta.square.site
Members will have received an email providing a special code to claim their member discount! If you are a Shasta Chapter CNPS member but did not receive this code, please contact us at shastacnps@gmail.com
Special note to all in Siskiyou County: you can select your plants from the online store and arrange to pick up your order at the Community Center in Yreka on May 11. Details are in the link above.
Photo taken April 9, 2025, by MaryAnn McCrary.
Our annual report
The Spring Sale has been the mainstay of Shasta Chapter’s scholarship program so there is naturally some suspense each year regarding how the sale goes. Last spring was our first one after the long slow-down for the pandemic. The 2024 sale produced about half of the proceeds that Shasta Chapter was seeing pre-Covid. And this spring the proceeds are very nearly the same as last year. The members’ pre-sale was very lightly attended. But, other than that, we sold practically the same number of plants this spring as last. Considering the changing economy, perhaps maintaining that level is doing very well!
Our customers have a diversity of sources now for native plants, including Turtle Bay Nursery who had their Spring Sale one week before ours; Ghost Pine Native Nursery; the Shasta College nursery; and our Shasta Chapter CNPS’ nursery. When you come to our Spring Sale, there are actually three native plant vendors at that event plus vegetable starts and ornamentals grown by Shasta College students.
Having three growers in one place is great for native plant gardeners. We are all not-for-profits whose goals include providing education about native plants as well as providing the plants themselves. At the Spring Sale, you can ask a variety of knowledgeable people any planting questions you may have. We all want to make sure residents can have the many benefits of native plants in their personal landscapes.
The many volunteers for Shasta Chapter’s propagation team over several decades can be proud of growing thousands of plants for our area. And for much of that time, the Chapter was the only local native-plant provider. Teamwork has always made the volunteer-run nursery possible. Now you could say the team has grown, or some would say that the “pie” is now divided into more pieces. I think there are more nurseries because people want more native plants.
Photo taken April 22, 2025, by MaryAnn McCrary.
When there are restoration projects in our region, or the need to plant after fires, our capacity is still far from equal to the task of supplying locally sourced native species. Having several native plant nurseries in Redding means we can find ways to complement each other and perhaps even work together to meet the needs for habitat restoration, or (keep the dream alive…) when developers or the City choose to plant natives.
No matter what, having a diversity of native plant sources in town means native plant gardeners will win! Stick around native plant gardeners! It’s just starting to get interesting! ~MaryAnn McCrary, Shasta Chapter CNPS Nursery Manager
Photo taken March 9, 2025, by Susan Libonati-Barnes.