This April, Grow Wild and UVM are working together to host their annual Native Plant Giveaway for Spectacular Nature Day at the Intervale Center. This giveaway provides free native plant species to community members as a way to mitigate and adapt to the local effects of climate change through nature-based solutions. This event has been very successful in previous years, giving away over a thousand native plants to the community. All 1300+ plants provided in this year’s giveaway are locally sourced and then germinated and grown in the UVM greenhouses.
Students in Dr. Laura Hill's Nature-Based Climate Solutions service-learning class (PBIO 2440) are partnering with community groups to make projects like the annual plant giveaway possible. Eva Morris and Gracie Byrd (pictured above) are students enrolled in this semester's course and are helping to coordinate the giveaway. Their goal is to not only make the native plants more accessible to local community members but also make gardening and education about native plants and climate mitigation through nature-based solutions more available to the community. They will determine how many plants are given away, where they go, and determine the success of plants from previous years, all while providing access to resources.
This project was made possible through Dr. Laura Hill’s service-learning course at UVM. This class seeks to teach students about global change and how it can be mitigated through solutions that nature can provide: specifically, by enhancing native plant diversity. After learning about the importance of nature-based climate solutions, students gain practical skills by engaging with community partners and helping develop projects that implement these strategies in the Burlington community. These projects all involve growing locally adapted plants grown in the greenhouse using native seeds collected around Vermont by previous students.
In addition to the giveaway, other projects this year include developing a pollinator garden at Lyman C. Hunt Middle School, implementing a no-mow zone adjacent to the Champlain Parkway multi-use path, hosting a seed balls for pollinators event at UVM, and giving them away at Spectacular Nature Day, and creating and publication of a native seed collection guide. All of these projects seek to support Burlington's Open Space Plan and increase biodiversity across the city of Burlington, reaching a large and diverse audience.
Find the giveaway at this year's Spectacular Nature Day!
2023 giveaway plants outside at the UVM greenhouses acclimating to spring temperatures.
2024, Dr. Hill and students pose with plants at the giveaway.
