“It’s simple, but complicated,” said Judy Gray.
The “it” is growing native plants from seed, the subject of a workshop hosted by Kim Gaffett and Clair Stover Comings on Dec. 16 at the Island Free Library, with special guest Hope Leeson, botanist with the R.I. Natural History Survey. “It was an idea Clair and I came up with,” said Gaffett, hoping to get people involved in volunteering to collect and clean native seed. “We don’t really know what the end result is,” she said, but we would go for a walk and, at the least, “we’re going to practice looking.”
Leeson, Gaffett said, “is the mother of Rhody Native.”
Rhody Native started 10 years ago and operates out of the University of Rhode Island. Its mission is to reintroduce native plants into the landscape. It started with a RINHS grant to train landscape contractors on how to remove invasive species, and then to restore the habitat with native species.
While collecting native seed and growing it out is, as Gray said, complicated, Leeson said that the easier method of growing plant stock from cuttings — the usual method
