25 Years of Planting

Part of our $25 for 25 Anniversary Series — explore more stories here. 

Let’s plant the next chapter of our story! Support our $25 for 25 campaign and help us continue bringing native wildflowers to communities across Florida.

Since the very beginning, the Florida Wildflower Foundation has been dedicated to bringing the beauty of native wildflowers to urban landscapes. These efforts foster appreciation for native plants while increasing critical resources for pollinators and creating habitat corridors through fragmented landscapes. In the early years, projects were funded on a case-by-case basis while volunteers and staff worked to formalize grant programs that would increase the effectiveness of our efforts.

Starting from Seed

Our first grant program, Seeds for Schools, started in 2009 and provided wildflower seeds to establish school gardens. Over time, in assessing the program’s success and sustainability, one primary barrier emerged: teachers had mixed results starting from seed. To address this, in 2016, we began partnering with native plant nurseries who could ship established seedlings directly to schools, giving teachers a head start and a much higher chance of success. The grant was renamed Seedlings for Schools. In addition to plants, teachers receive our Wild About Wildflowers! activity guide and an extensive compilation of educational resources to help integrate their new garden into classroom curriculum. Seedlings for Schools connects students with the natural world around them, fostering an appreciation for wildflowers and the wildlife they support. Since 2010, we have supported over 600 school gardens and engaged thousands of students.

Celebrating Florida with Wildflowers

In 2010, the Foundation’s second grant program, La Florida, launched, providing mini-grants of $500 to support community native plant gardens. It was popular in its early years, but came to an end in 2015 due to a lack of qualified applicants. During this same period, in 2011, the Viva Florida Landscape Demonstration Garden Grant came online. Viva Florida also supports community native gardens, but on a larger scale, providing up to $3,000 for gardens in public spaces such as parks, extension offices and historical landmarks. Applications are reviewed by a committee of native plant experts and landscape professionals to select the strongest projects. Since 2011, Viva Florida has supported over 90 gardens in community spaces that have been visited by more than 2 million people. These spaces demonstrate how native plants support the local ecology and offer examples of how people can bring native plants into their own landscapes.

Where Curiosity Sparks Conservation

In 2025, we launched our newest grant program, Seeds of Knowledge, to fund gardens at public libraries. Libraries are unique community spaces where people from all walks of life come together to learn. So much more than just checking out books, libraries are hubs of community information and gathering — making them ideal locations to establish native plant gardens and host seed libraries. The response to this program has been overwhelmingly positive, and to date, we have supported 18 library gardens. We look forward to growing this program further and connecting more communities with native plants and pollinators.

Bring on the Bees

In 2022, the City of Gainesville received a Bee City USA designation from the Xerces Society, with the Florida Wildflower Foundation as the nonprofit partner. Through this program, we lead a committee of City staff, local nonprofits, businesses and community members who advise and guide the City toward more pollinator-friendly practices, facilitate the installation of native plant gardens throughout Gainesville, and provide public education on the importance of creating habitat for pollinators. Initially funded through a generous private donor, these efforts have established nine gardens so far, with many more in the works.

Beyond these formalized programs, the Foundation has supported countless other community plantings through partnerships with nonprofits, parks, cities and community groups.

We are incredibly proud of the legacy we’ve built connecting people with native plants and pollinators, and we look forward to keeping Florida’s communities in bloom. Every garden begins with someone willing to plant the first seed. Whether it’s a classroom, a community park, a library or your own backyard, each native planting creates habitat, sparks curiosity and inspires others to do the same.

This month, you can help plant the next chapter of our story. Support our $25 for 25 campaign and help us continue bringing native wildflowers to communities across Florida.