1. Meet your foster plant
Participants receive a young regionally native plant and get introduced to the simple care it needs.
Home The Foster-a-Sprout journeyA little care goes
A little care goes
a long way.
Care for a young native plant during one part of its journey, then pass that care forward.
A simple way to care for native plants and help build lasting habitat.
Foster-a-Sprout gives people a hands-on role in a native plant's journey. Participants care for young plants, learn along the way, and help them reach a permanent home.
2. Care for it
Up-pot, water, observe, and watch the plant grow. The foster period can be adapted to the community and setting.
3. Build a connection
Plant care creates opportunities for conversation, observation, learning, and a personal connection to the living plant.
Give your foster plant a name.
Each foster plant can carry a simple label with its plant name, basic care information, and the name of the person or group that fostered it. When the plant moves to its Forever Habitat Home, that little piece of its story moves with it.
Every plant is a chance to learn.
Fostering can be as simple as caring for a plant, or it can become a hands-on way to explore native pollinators, plant life cycles, seeds, and the relationships that create habitat. Activities can be adapted to fit each school or community.
What happens after fostering?
Keep it on site
If the foster community has an appropriate permanent planting space, the plant can stay there and become part of that community's habitat.
Send it forward
If the plant needs another destination, it can move to a Forever Habitat Home such as a school garden, community site, food forest, open space, or other permanent habitat.
When plants move forward, follow-up photos can return to the foster community so participants can see what their care became.
See Forever Habitat Homes