Photos of several plants that will be available for purchase are below
The Gila Native Plant Society (GNPS) is calling on gardeners to come to its annual native plant sale on Saturday, August 8, 2026. It will be held from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm in the parking lot on the corner of 12th and Pope Streets across from Gough Park in Silver City. Native plant vendors from New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado will be selling a wide variety of native trees, shrubs, perennial flowers, and cacti. Purchasers can select the plants they want and discuss their placement and care with native plant growers. Some vendors may take cash or checks only, so buyers should come prepared. The sale is open to all.
Why plant native plants? They are adapted to the conditions of our area‒ its soils, sunshine, and moisture levels‒and are more drought-tolerant than most non-natives. Native plants have long-standing relationships with native pollinators, birds, and other wildlife, for which they provide food and shelter. And they are beautiful. To see what some mature native plants look like, take a stroll through the Silva Creek Botanical Garden, developed and maintained by GNPS, on Virginia Street, two blocks north of Highway 180 in Silver City.
In the Southwest the monsoon season is a good time to plant, when the ground is moist and the sun is moderated. The aim of the Gila Native Plant Society is to get as many native plants in as many gardens as possible and to support the nurseries that propagate them – a rare species.
Silver City is fortunate to have an extensive native plant nursery nearby, Lone Mountain Natives, which will be at the sale with a wide assortment of native perennial flowers and shrubs. Another local native plant cultivator, Sacaton Nursery, will add to the extensive offerings. The Upper Gila Watershed Alliance (UGWA) has developed a tree nursery to support its restoration projects and will be offering some of its trees for sale, all native to our area. GNPS will have native plants for sale as well, cultivated by Priscilla Titus and a few other members.
We have also brought in native plant growers from Arizona and Colorado. Suncatcher Desert Plant Nursery of nearby Safford, Arizona, tells us they will sell desert willows, scarlet buglers, chocolate flowers, seed-grown ocotillos, and horsetail milkweed (Asclepias subverticillata), to name just a few of their offerings. Ethical Desert of Pueblo Colorado, a specialist in cold-hardy cacti and succulents, is bringing a great selection to our native plant sale; their plants are painstakingly cultivated from seed.
The Gila Native Plant Society invites the community to come to the parking lot next to Gough Park on Saturday, August 8th, to talk about native plants and acquire some for the garden. A list of some of the plants that will be available for purchase will be on the Gila Native Plant Society website a few days before the sale: https://gilanps.org/native-plant-sale-2026 .
Photos of just a few of the native plants that will be available for sale. Photos courtesy of the Dale A. Zimmerman Herbarium, WNMU.
Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis)
Chocolate flower (Berlandiera lyrata)
Horsetail Milkweed (Asclepias subverticillata)
