Category: Events

We are excited to have you join us at our workshop! This workshop is designed to help educate the community on ways to monitor and improve soil health, divide native plants to facilitate growth, and learn the steps on how to create a pollinator habitat.

We will be demonstrating the process for selecting and planting a pollinator garden with native plants.

Attendees will also be invited to learn more about dividing native plants at the workshop. The hope is that attendees can take the knowledge they learn at the workshop and be able to divide their plants at home and multiple the amount of native plants within their gardens. Divided plants are perfect for giving away to neighbors to help start a garden and with more gardens, the pathway pollinators take when they visit Washington DC is expanded.

Do you like free stuff? Don’t forget to pickup up some FREE plant giveways! We will also be giving away some native bush and shrub cuttings and also some native plants to help you add more native pollinator plants to your garden.

RSVP to the Pollinator Garden Workshop through the attached link.

To join us for any of our other events, please head on over to our events page

At DC Natives we strive to help educate and build the knowledge of the community with the hopes of strengthen the community’s connection with the environment and people living around them. Whether they are beginners in the gardening journey or tenured in their years of experience, DC Natives creates partnerships and events that intend to build relationships to overall make DC a better beautiful place to live.

Please join us at any of the events listed below:

2026 Dates

• March 7 – Dept of Energy and Environment’s Rooting DC – Rooting DC 2026  – educational, workshops, exhibitor booths, local eats, networking space, and valuable community-building where local growers and food-systems stakeholders share their knowledge
• March 14 – US Botanical Garden  Production Facility Community Day – USBG Production Facility Open House (On-site Special Event)
• March 14 – DC Natives Beginner Gardener Demonstration Series –  Soil Prep and How to Deal with Wiregrass (rain date 3/15, 2-4 pm). Register here.
• March 21 – DC Natives Beginner Gardener Demonstration Series – Planning and Preparation for a Pollinator Garden, Hill East/Kingman Park (rain date 3/22, 2-4 pm). Register here to attend the event and learn more about garden planning and placement. 
• March 28– Capitol View Pollinator Workshop– Join us at our workshop to learn more about monitoring and improving soil health, dividing native plants to help expand your garden, and selecting a site for a native plant pollinator habitat, and how to plant a pollinator garden. Learn more at on our workshop page
• April 3 – Join us for the first of the First Flower Fridays series in the Brightwood Park neighborhood
  • To learn more about DC Natives First Flower Friday and view other dates, find out more on our First Flower Friday Series page
• April 19 – DC Natives Beginner Gardener Demonstration Series –  Garden Design and Native Plant Installation – Trinidad neighborhood (rain date 4/20, 6-8 pm). Register here. 
• April 25 – DC Natives Beginner Gardener Demonstration Series – Garden Design, Native Plant Selection, and Garden Installation – Hill East/Kingman Park (rain date 4/26, same time). Register here to attend the workshop.
• April 25 DC Natives Beginner Gardener Demonstration Series New Garden – Designing a Garden with Native Plants (rain date 4/26, same time). Register here.
• June 13 – Neighborhood Garden Walking Tour, Trinidad neighborhood (rain date 6/14, same time). Register here. Meeting location will be shared with registered participants before the event.

One of D.C.’s best kept secrets is tucked away atop a hill in Brookland, but DC Natives let the secret out during our last First Flower Friday of 2025—the most well-attended FFF since we kicked our event series in 2023. We hosted FFF in Ward 5 at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America, a special place not only because of its history and architecture, but also because it is home to one million bees thanks to its pollinator meadow, orchard, and gardens. 

More than 70 FFF attendees heard from the Monastery’s Senior Farm Manager Farm Tyler Hendon who discussed how he manages and stewards 15 acres on the back side of the impressive property. The Monastery grows about 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of food in its garden each year which is distributed to city partners, particularly those in the area’s high-density food deserts. The planning, general work, and harvesting is a modest effort that is nearly 100% volunteer run. We also learned that the Monastery is home to a 120-year-old greenhouse on site that predates the Civil War and features an outdoor Rosary Portico with a formal rose garden.

In addition to the acres of fauna and flora, the Monastery is home to full-size replicas of the Holy Land’s shrines, including the Tomb of Christ, Ascension and the Monastery Church. 

Many attendees remarked that this was their first time at the 126-year-old landmark and we’re happy to know that DC Natives was able to make the community connection. (Keep reading to learn about another event at the Monastery that we partnered on!) [link to other Monastery article here] It was great to see the work the garden is doing to conserve pollinator species, specifically the bees, through their beekeeping activities. And while honeybees aren’t native, we still appreciate what is being done to show the integral connection between the pollinators and the food we all consume. We wouldn’t be able to do it without the help of our smallest unpaid workers. 🐝 

During our event, we also heard from Free DC, an organizing movement committed to attaining home rule in Washington, D.C. They discussed how to take action during the government agency and Army Reserves occupation of the District, in addition to explaining the work they do to fight for DC Home Rule.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention that the Monastery—which is free and open to the public—is currently working on cultivating and producing wine, so stay tuned and make sure to visit whether you missed the event or would like to return. Click here to learn more.

If you attended our last FFF of the season and would like to share some of your fun or insightful takeaways from the beautiful event, email us to share your pics or tag us on Instagram and Facebook.

If you’d like to host a First Flower Friday or have a connection or partnership at a site that would be perfect for our growing spring through fall event series, please let us know at dcnatives.org@gmail.com! 

The Washington, DC Host Club has invited the DC Natives community to its DC Host Connect Holiday Party on Tuesday, December 9th from 6:30-8:30 PM at The Strand DC.

Hear from DC Natives’ Executive Director, Thorne Rankin, about updates about our work. She will share tips and talk about how you can help us reach our goals. We remained focused on creating pollinator habitat through Washington, DC residential gardens where homeowners take the lead. Native plants divide easily, so one garden becomes many!

Event Details:

• Tuesday, December 9, 6:30-8:30 PM at The Strand DC, 5131 Nannie Helen Burroughs Ave NE, Washington, DC 20019
• Food and drink tickets provided (while supplies last.)
• Please bring one non-perishable food item to donate to a local food bank
• Space is limited—RSVP required via this Google Form: https://forms.gle/k3xtNVRDRznMUcENA

Come celebrate the season, meet fellow environmental advocates and Airbnb hosts, and learn how you can help us green DC! 🦋🌱

Recently, DC Natives was invited to attend the Fall Festival at the Franciscan Monastery Garden Guild to celebrate the autumn harvest. We are thankful that the Guild had such a bountiful harvest, none of which would be possible without the help of, you know who: the pollinators.

According to the Franciscan Monastery Garden Guild (FMGG) website, the farm features a historic 110-year-old greenhouse and a vast garden where produce is grown for disbursement into the community through the farm’s food donation program.

Through the program, they grow, harvest and donate as much as 8,000 pounds of fresh, local food every year for food pantries and non-profits that provide meals for neighbors in need.

Two DC Natives Pollinator Gardens block captains, Sarah and Victor, were able to attend the event and talk to some of our neighbors in attendance about the importance of pollination and native plants. 

To add to the excitement of the event, our Block Captains were even able to witness the marvelous weed-eating machines: the sheep of Lamb Mowers Fairfax!

The Lamb Mowers of Fairfax use a flock of sheep to clear poison ivy, multi-floral rose and other nuisance or invasive plants out of yards through natural grazing. The sheep provide mostly odorless fertilizer pellets that increase the soil’s fertility, carbon capture, and water-holding capacity.

We are so grateful to all community members who came to this event and stopped by the DC Natives Pollinator Garden table. We hope all in attendance were able to enjoy the fruits of the labor of all the volunteers at the Franciscan Monastery Garden Guild as well as our unpaid busy workers: bees, butterflies, ladybugs, ants, flies, and every other little creature that helped pollinate all the plants at the garden and increased the food produced to help our communities!

If you’ve never had the opportunity to visit or volunteer at the farm at the Franciscan Monastery, located in Brookland, you are certainly missing out! The monastery is completely free to visit and a great place to find community.

Several DC Natives garden owners have a green thumb. They can tell a weed from a wildflower, a shovel from a spade, and bee balm from scarlet sage. The beauty about the DC Natives model, however, is that our garden owners are also novices. Residents that are a bit timid around , just learning that bees can be our friends, and that .How do we know this? Because we love spending time with our community, you share your garden experiences, and oh, yeah: we sent you a survey earlier this year.

And oh, did we listen to what you had to say! We heard that many of you wanted more support and education in caring for your gardens. So what we did was convene with our board of directors and came up with First Flower Fridays, DC Natives Demonstration Garden Series! 

We kicked things off the first Friday in April, providing hands-on instruction right in the gardens of community members. We met at the homes of our co-founders Ms. Anne Miller and Ms. Peaches Dorsey to spruce up their pollinator gardens after the winter, plant a few new plants and have some refreshments. 

Throughout the spring and summer, we journeyed across Wards 7 & 8, doing demonstrations, pouring libations, and spreading the gospel of pollinator magic! We’d like to offer a big thanks to those who hosted including Lia Cheek, Zerline Hughes Spruill, Anne Miller and Peaches Dorsey, Lee Keeling and Synta Keeling, who held a very informative FFF around pollinator gardens and renting your home through Airbnb. Who knew pollinators could also attract a second income!

Now that the cooler seasons are upon us, our First Flower Fridays will reconvene in the spring. We hope you’ll join us again or for the first time as FFF is a great way to meet other DC Natives gardeners, brush up on skills and learn new things! Invitations are sent via email so keep your eyes peeled!

In a recent survey of participants in our Pollinator Garden program, we learned that our community is interested in receiving more support and education to help them care for their gardens. We listened to your feedback and we’re thrilled to continue our education and social happy hour First Flower Fridays! It’s the DC Natives Demonstration Garden Series!

Held on the first Friday of every month, this series will offer hands-on instruction right in the gardens of community members. Our gardener team will guide you through:

• Caring for your pollinator haven
• Planting techniques for a flourishing pollinator pathway
• Essential tips for maintaining healthy and vibrant native pollinator gardens

This is a fantastic opportunity to learn the ropes, ask questions, hang out with like-minded neighbors, and gain the confidence to create your own native plant oasis.

Calling all Green Thumbs!

To keep making this program a success, we’re seeking passionate community members to help bring the knowledge and environmental caring spirit that helps DC Natives continue to do the work we do in DC. If you have a love for native plants and enjoy sharing your knowledge, we’d love to have you attend!

Show Us Your Garden Gems!

Please click the link to RSVP to the First Flower Fridays Demo Garden Series! While you wait in anticipation for the first Friday of the month, feel free to sign up to volunteer or take a look at the other events we have going on. We look forward to digging in with you!

Upcoming First Flower Fridays!

• Friday, April 3, 2026
• Friday, May 1, 2026
• Friday, June 5, 2026
• Friday, July 10, 2026
• Friday, August 7, 2026
• Friday, September 4, 2026

Keep an eye out on our email distribution and Instagram for updates on upcoming events.