Wildflower Fiesta

The San Marcos nature center had over 900 people show up to their annual Wildflower Fiesta.

The San Marcos Nature Center hosted their annual Wildflower Fiesta Plant Sale and Market on Saturday, March 29. Native plants use less water and can handle our hot Texas summers better than non-natives. Nature center staff and volunteers were available to help customers pick the perfect plant to attract bees and hummingbirds. Along with the plant sale, the nature center had local artisans displaying their wares.

“What the nature center exists for is to try to teach people about our native plants and our native animals. It’s easy to look at the river and say, “Wow, that’s beautiful.” but we’re trying to give people a deeper understand of our river, why the river matters, WHY it’s great over and beyond just being a beautiful place to live. So we talk a lot about native plants and animals at the nature center. Water conservation is a big issue here in San Marcos. We wanna keep our river flowing, so not only do native plants use less water, it’s great for our river but as a homeowner, it’s gonna cost you less. Native plants are uniquely suited to central Texas. They can handle our summers, they can handle our unpredictable winters like we just finished up.”
– Jenna Winters

All proceeds from the sale benefitted the Nature Center’s educational programming and displays.

“For us, it’s important funding source. The money that we make from the plants goes to our educational programming for our kids camps this summer, helps subsidize school groups, and just a lot of the youth education groups that we do, and just flat out helps keep the doors open.  But then also it ties really well into our mission of why natives matter and why it’s a better choice.”
– Jenna Winters

To learn more about our native plants or to just embrace their Texas beauty, you can visit the San Marcos Nature Center at 430 Riverside Drive. The nature center is open Monday-Thursday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and Friday and Sunday from 11 a.m.-3 p.m..

Kalie Souknary, KTSW News