Sustainable Wildflower Harvesting Practices
Let’s talk responsible wild harvesting folks.
We all love to pick a handful of posies and bring them home to brighten the kitchen table or our mother’s smile or our whole entire week. Seriously, what can’t a beautiful bunch of flowers make brighter?
Here at Cloudy Ridge Ranch we absolutely adore all things plants and have recently embarked on a new venture: cut flowers. Now, as a cut-flower gardener (or any gardener/farmer for that matter) you are basically guaranteed crop failures. And the best planning in the world is not always going to save you. This spring we had exceptionally strong winds all through June and half of July, which decimated 85% of my annuals. Zinnias, scabiosa, virgo…the list goes on and still makes me depressed so I will stop there. SO in order to save the day (aka. the entire market season) we had to turn to foraging native plants to supplement the weak production from the gardens. I know this is a go-to for a lot of folks out there who also do flowers, professionally or casually, but I want you to know that there is a RIGHT and WRONG way to go about harvesting native plants.
Here are some basic rules by which we abide, and which we recommend for anyone wanting to bring a handful of wild beauty home with them:
- Only harvest from your own private property, or where you have permission from the landowner.
- Only harvest up to 10% of any given plant population in a growing season.
- Never pull plants up by the root. Instead, clip the stems so as to leave the roots to grow again another year.
- Educate yourself about native, noxious and listed species identification in your area (your State or Provincial website and also your County Office will have information for you).
- NEVER harvest species listed as rare or sensitive (again information specific to your area should be available from the State/Province).
-If you choose harvest noxious or invasive species (a great way to help control spread and enjoy them), make sure to dispose of them properly in the household garbage NOT in the back yard. Even better, if you can do so safely, burn them.
If we decide this business venture is one we would like to continue long term, we will experiment with propagating some of our favorite species at home so as not to rely on the natural populations.
We have been deeply enjoying this new project and hope that we are helping spread the appreciation and awareness of the native plants that we all so enjoy!
#cloudyridgeranch #cloudyridgeranchandgardens #sustainableflowers #sustainableforaging #wildforaging
