What are the challenges, opportunities and issues related to sourcing and supplying native plants, especially as demand for these plants increases?
Steve Castorani, co-founder, and president of North Creek Nurseries will explain how a wholesale nursery such as North Creek supplies this growing market. Steve will also touch on localized efforts to harvest, propagate, and disseminate ecotypic plants and seeds, and how each approach has a role in expanding the supply of native plants available for gardeners, growers, and landscape restoration projects.

Steve Castorani earned a degree in Plant Science from the University of Delaware. After founding 2 businesses, a landscape design-build firm and then Gateway Garden Center, Steve co-founded North Creek Nurseries (PA) in 1988. North Creek is a wholesale propagation nursery, specializing in growing starter plant plugs of perennials, ornamental grasses, ferns, vines, and shrubs with an emphasis on Eastern US native plants. They are a supplier of solution based native plants for growers and ecological firms engaged in restoration and protection of the environment.

Steve also co-created the American Beauties Plant® brand which is sold through independent garden centers. In 2020 The American Horticultural Society awarded Steve the Paul Ecke Jr. Commercial Award. This award is given to an individual or company whose commitment to the highest standards of excellence in the field of commercial horticulture. He also received the prestigious Award for Merit from the International Plant Propagation Society. Steve has served on the Delaware Invasive Species Council, developing guidelines for the implementation of an invasive species policy for the state of Delaware.

This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.

To register and for more details go to riwps.org/event/lisa-lofland-gould-lecture-native-plant-supply-chain/

This lecture is underwritten by the Lisa Lofland Gould Native Plant Program Fund and is sponsored by Rhode Island Wild Plant Society,  Rhode Island Natural History Survey and University of Rhode Island Master Gardener Program.