PTA
Earth Day Plant Sale
Get ready to celebrate Earth Day, raise money for your PTA Council, and win free plants for a butterfly garden at your school. The fundraiser event will be hosted April 18th and 19th, the weekend before Earth Day, by the Richardson Council of PTAs at their Greenwood Hills Learning Center.
PTA members are invited from across DFW to purchase plants and help their school qualify for $100 of plants for free. PTA Councils in Richardson, Plano, Frisco, Wylie, and Carrollton-Farmers Branch will receive $10 cash for each tray of plants that they sell to their members.
Garden club leaders, environmental PTA chairs, art teachers, science teachers, school counselors, and PTA members are all invited to purchase plants. When 5 PTA members at your school purchase a tray of plants, your school receives 1 tray of plants free. A tray of 20 plants will build a 150 square foot butterfly garden at your school. Plants are native (or well adapted) to our hot DFW summers and are highly drought tolerant. We sell perennial plants, so once they're planted they'll come back every year.
Copper Canyon Daisy, also called Perennial Marigold, is a Texas Smartscape recommended plant. With bright yellow blooms in late fall up until frost, and marigold-scented leaves, it's a native of the Sonoran Desert of Northern Mexico and Arizona.
Teaching Art, STEM, and Self-Care with the Garden
Art and science teachers: want an easy way to engage students with the garden? Many of these plants can be easily propagated with stem cuttings (Copper Canyon Daisy), root division (Gregg's Mistflower), or collecting seeds (Purple Coneflower). Show students how plants grow, and expand your butterfly garden with more free perennial native plants.
School counselors can recommend nature therapy activities in the garden, for students struggling academically or with their mental health. For art classes, bring students to the garden to draw, paint, and photograph these plants and the butterflies they attract. Read our blog article to learn about all the DFW wildlife that your garden can attract. Learn how school gardens boost academic performance and can help grow PTA membership.
Flame Acanthus, a hummingbird magnet that blooms on-and-off from spring to late summer. A great plant to have at your school to show students these plants growing from seed and stem cuttings.
Who Is Invited?
All PTA members from Richardson, Plano, Frisco, Wylie, and Carrollton-Farmers Branch are invited to our Earth Day plant sale. PTA members save $20 on their tray of plants, when they order by April 1st. Online ordering will open for PTA members on February 1st. A limited number of trays are available for PTA leaders to reserve now until they're gone.
Gregg's Mistflower, a favorite of the Monarch and Queen butterflies (and fireflies). A long bloomer, from early spring through November. A few of these plants is all you need! They love areas that get extra water, but are also highly drought tolerant.
Event Location
The event is hosted by the Richardson PTA Council, at their Greenwood Hills Learning Center facility. The facility can hold 1000 trays, and we can accommodate 200 orders from each of the 5 school districts to raise $2000 for your PTA Council. 40 PTA leaders per district may sign up so that their school will receive a free tray of plants. For questions about fundraising, please contact Richardson PTA Council fundraising chair, Sarah Southward.
Frogfruit, an excellent native groundcover (under 12" tall) with long-blooming white flowers. A host plant for three different butterflies that will lay their eggs on this plant and guarantee the garden is full of butterflies all summer long.
Local PTA Leaders
Each PTA Council may invite up to 40 local PTA leaders to purchase a tray for their home garden for just $30. In order to save $70 and get 20 plants for $1.50 per plant, PTA leaders will promote the plant sale at their school and sell 5 trays to help raise $50 for their PTA Council, and get $100 of free plants donated to their school. PTA leaders can register now with the form below, until all PTA leader spaces are sold out for your district. Once we receive 40 PTA leader orders for your school district, we will post an update to this website.
Maximilian Sunflower, a native plant that is a favorite for birds in the fall who will eat the small seeds over the wintertime. Skip annual sunflowers....plant these instead and you'll have sunflowers every year!
Garden Club Leaders
Does your school have a garden club already with a lot of volunteers? Do you have a vegetable garden and want more plants for butterflies and beneficial insects? Your school can likely sell 20 trays of native plants and qualify to get $400 of plants free. We invite your school to sign up with 4 PTA leaders to build a new, 600 square foot butterfly garden.
These plants will be a great way to attract beneficial insects (like lacewings) that naturally control pests like aphids. You can use our Circle garden design template to lay out your butterfly garden, or easily create your own design. We can provide step-by-step installation instructions to install the garden, with materials that cost only $200 (paper and mulch). We can also provide a seasonal maintenance plan, so you know what to do each season of the year to care for these plants.
Pink Gaura, a native plant with slender, 4-5' tall bloom spikes from late spring to early fall that bring bees and butterflies
Plants For Sale
We offer a wide variety of plants....both for shady and full sun areas. PTA members can use our online store (available February 1st) to learn about the plants and search for plants that will work for their landscape conditions. While we can't guarantee that all of these plants will be in stock, the growers we work with are well aware that Earth Day is a big day for plant sales. We anticipate having many of these available for purchase.
For shade: Pigeonberry, Texas Gold Columbine, River Fern, Missouri Violet, Inland Sea Oats, Lyreleaf Sage, Cedar Sage, Horseherb, Turks Cap, Purple Coneflower
For full sun: Walker Low Catmint, Red Flame Acanthus, Gregg's Mistflower, White Gaura, Pink Gaura, Zexmenia, Purple Fall Obedient, Purple Skullcap, Pink Skullcap, Indigo Spires, Frogfruit, Four Nerve Daisy, Mealy Blue Sage, Gray Goldenrod, Woolly Stemodia, Fall Aster, Fragrant Mistflower, Powis Castle Artemisia, Black Eye Susan, Copper Canyon Daisy, Cutleaf Daisy, Damianita, Giant Coneflower, Lantana (New Gold, Native, Dallas Red), Mexican Oregano, Rock Rose, Russian Sage, Gray Shrub Sage, Autumn Sage (Red, White, Pink), Skeleton Leaf Goldeneye, Coral Honeysuckle, Sedums (Angelina, Hardy Ice Plant, Coral Reef, Red Carpet, John Creech), Little Bluestem, White Yarrow, Purple Coneflower, Turks Cap (Red and Pink), Butterflyweed, Golden Groundsel, Datura, Chile Pequin, Lanceleaf Coreposis, Chile Pequin, Fern Clover, Maximilian Sunflower, Pink Evening Primrose, Prostrate Rosemary, Forsythia Sage, Texas Betony
Turks Cap, a native plant (related to hibiscus) that attracts hummingbirds and butterflies in full sun or shady spots.
Get Your School Registered
Now's the time to get your school registered. Once you fill out our form, you'll receive a link by January 1st to pay your $20 deposit to reserve your order. You'll receive a unique Promo Code by February 1st, to share with PTA members so they can order their trays by April 1st. Once that code is used 5 times and we receive final payment on the 5 trays, your school will receive $100 of free plants. You'll complete checkout for your personal tray of plants with a final $10 payment. With any questions, please contact Ben Strube with Soils Alive (ben@soilsalive.com).
Russian Sage, a very drought (and cold) hardy plant from Asia that does very well here in DFW.
