Seeds To Community
Seeds To Community teaches all of the skills required to grow restorative native plants and offers participants the opportunity to get hands-on with the rhythms of the natural world. Through an ongoing series of events and workshops, our attendees are aligning with the seasons, getting close to nature, and growing our way to greater ecological harmony.
Our seasonal workshops on seed collection, stratification, and cultivation techniques foster both practical planting experience and a deeper understanding of local biodiversity. Seeds To Community is a place for any resident, group, or neighborhood to learn native plant cultivation from seed-to-ground, regardless of skill level, amount of space, or financial situation. Our goal is to give all participants confidence in their plant growing skills and to empower them to support their local ecosystems.
Guiding Principles
- Everyone deserves diverse natural places and experiences, and rich native spaces, no matter where they live or how much money they have.
- Offering regular opportunities to interact with and steward our local natural resources will help to enable the community to steward their own property and the communal areas in their neighborhood.
- Collectively, we strive to meet this moment of ecological and social challenges and to scale solutions to match our communal needs.
- We rely upon the indigenous concept of Honorable Harvest in our decision making and in growth that is based on reciprocity. We encourage and practice reciprocity and believe that an intimate, reflective closeness with the natural world and our human communities will help heal ourselves and our world.
Seeds To Community event at County Farm Park in Ann Arbor, MI
Get Involved
-
Join our Newsletter and/or Volunteer lists:
Seeds To Community Emails
-
Connect with us on social media:
Seeds To Community Facebook
-
Explore our Community Resources:
Seeds To Community Google Drive
-
See all of our upcoming events:
Seeds To Community Google Calendar
-
Register now for our big events:
Seeds To Community Eventbrite
Seeds To Community event at at Eberwhite Nature Center Ann Arbor, MI
Our Seasonal Calendar
Series events align with the responses of native vegetation to the seasons.
May – November: Seed collection, centered around individual collections from volunteers’ yards, collaboration with local groups, and guided seed collection hikes in local parks/preserves. The seeds collected span a large variety of environments and types with a focus on prairie and woodland species (grasses, flowers, and bushes).
October – December: Seed cleaning and stratification provides hands-on experience and community building as participants learn about many plant patterns and how to prepare different seeds for planting.
January – March: Seeds are available back to the community at planting workshops. Outdoor growing is offered using the Winter Sowing method and indoor growing offered via seedling trays.
April – May: As our community grown seedlings gain a little height, up-potting and sharing events allow us to take advantage of our collective “average” bounty. After a month of outdoor growing, the up-potted plants are ready for yards, public spaces, and habitat restoration. As we plant them, we notice a great return of beautiful Michigan life.
From year to year, the series overlap, as spring planting events coincide with spring wildflower seed collection activities.
Learn More About Our Partner Organizations
Seeds To Community is a program of the Huron Arbor Cluster (a TSN Member Community)
To connect directly with the Seeds To Community team, please email Seeds2Community@gmail.com