Gov. Mark Gordon first designated April as Native Plant Month in Wyoming in 2023 and did so again this year.
In the most recent proclamation, Gordon encouraged residents to learn more about how the plants benefit Wyoming’s ecosystems and to put native trees and flowers in their yards to support wildlife.
The U.S. Senate first passed a resolution creating the Native Plant Month designation on a national level in 2021, and identical resolutions have been passed every year since.
Wyoming is home to more than 2,500 native plant species, according to the Wyoming Native Plant Society (WYNPS). Dorothy Tuthill is the nonprofit’s secretary and treasurer and said that number only covers a subsection of plants.
“ Those would be the vascular plants, the plants that have plumbing, not counting mosses and liverworts which we also have untold numbers of,” she said.
WYNPS got its start in the early 1980s and has taken the lead in sending the annual plant month proclamation to Gordon’s desk since 2023. Tuthill is a trained mycologist and said getting more native plants in the ground has a variety of benefits.
“It saves a lot of water, too, if we're growing native plants because they're adapted to here, but also to support all the wildlife,” she said.
Tuthill emphasized that the area’s plants and animals co-evolved. She said that native plants provide habitat and food sources to a wide variety of insects, and the two in turn support the rest of the food chain.
“ Plants are the foundations of our ecosystems. Everybody can appreciate animals, including insects even, but we often tend to look through or over the vegetation in order to see the birds and the mammals,” she said.
The nonprofit has active chapters in Teton and Sublette counties, with roughly 200 members sprinkled throughout the state. Tuthill said there’s also a large concentration of botanists in Albany County and that the membership gets together every year for their annual Wildflower Weekend. This year, the group will get together in Fort Laramie from May 30 to June 1.
“ We spend the weekend basically walking around or crawling around, sometimes looking at plants,” she said. “It's a really fun time to hang out with other native plant enthusiasts.”
She added, “Most people aren't willing to creep along looking at every single plant, but it's a really fun thing to do when you get the opportunity and the people you're with are willing to do that."
Tuthill has gotten more questions over the years about how to source and grow native plants in home gardens. She said there are some stores catering to that market, like Piney Island Native Plants in Sheridan, but acknowledged that there’s not yet a lot of specialized nurseries in the state.
Kimberly McMorrow helped organize a WYNPS poster contest this month for Wyoming sixth through eighth graders, which built on a similar contest in 2024. She said the hope is to raise awareness about the role that these plants play in “sustaining healthy, diverse and resilient ecosystems.”
“A poster contest focused on middle school students seems especially appropriate,” said McMorrow. “Wyoming life science standards for this age group include ecosystems and biodiversity, making it a perfect fit for both science education and creative engagement.”
In 2023, WYNPS worked with artist Natalya Zahn to create an interactive poster that describes interconnections among native plants, pollinators and wildlife. According to McMorrow, hundreds of those posters were sent to schools across the state during the first Wyoming Native Plant Month that year.
WYNPS will also host a volunteer day at the Hutton Lake Wildlife Refuge outside Laramie from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on April 26. Participants will help map saltcedar, a non-native plant that sucks up water and deposits salt in the soil. That information will then be shared with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to start developing a plan for the species’ removal.
