Native Plants

My project action plan was to create colorful signs for the plants, contact the nurseries I wanted to place them in, and record any increase in the sales of the native plants afterwards. For the first step, I created small drawings of different Florida birds and butterflies. I designed 3x5 cards using these drawings that promoted the wildlife attracting native plants. I printed out and copied these designs onto colorful cardstock, cut them out, and had them laminated. I tried contacting nurseries out of the yellow pages, but too many of them were wholesale only. I switched to an alternate strategy and visited the neighborhood Home Depot. I was able to put up my signs there. Later I also visited a much larger nursery on Southern Boulevard, called Southern Gardens. I finished my action plan there by putting signs up on the dozen or so native species they offered there.

In the end, there was not enough time to truly track any rise in the purchases of the native plants. I am satisfied, however, with the people I did talk to, from the kind manager in Home Depot, to the helpful managers at Southern Gardens. I did successfully influence the people I came into contact with, and I believe that their opinions of the native plants have been changed. My project surprised me in many ways, taking more work and time than I had estimated, and affecting people’s way of thinking in a way that I hadn’t planned out.