Native LI plants featured in Riverhead

The Long Island Native Plant Initiative Friday and Saturday will offer a variety of local plants to buyers in the hopes of encouraging property owners to use plants that require less water and fertilizer, and can survive Long Island’s climate.

The sale, at the greenhouse at Suffolk Community College’s Riverhead campus, will offer more than two dozen native species or, if they’re not available, plants with the same genetic traits as local species. The sale, which runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., is an effort by the Suffolk County Soil and Water Conservation District to encourage people to not use imported species, many of which can be invasive.

There will be pots and flats of Purple Lovegrass, Broome Sedge, and Joe Pye weed, Eastern Prickly Pear, Gray Goldenrod and Hairy White Field Aster, along with New York Ironweed, recognizable by its purple flowers that can be found in pastures and along roadsides all over the East Coast.

The plants are $10 for a six-pack, $50 for a flat of six six-packs, or $4 or $6 for pots.

Riverhead Campus is located at at the intersection of County Route 51 and Speonk-Riverhead Road in the Riverside section of Southampton Town.

Above: Eastern Prickly Pear