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Food, Flora, and Fun at Lancaster’s Native Plant and Wildlife Festival

April 30, 2022, 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM EDT Free

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Food, Flora, and Fun at Lancaster’s Native Plant and Wildlife Festival

Tree shelters and tree seedlings ready to be planted in a riparian buffer.

Need Garden Inspo, or Just Want to Enjoy Nature?

Join US at Lancaster’s Native Plant and Wildlife Festival for Food, Flora, and Fun!

  • When: April 30, 2022 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. 
  • Where: Overlook Community Campus, across from the Manheim Township Public Library, 595 Granite Run Drive, Lancaster, Pa.
  • What: Meet native plant vendors, enjoy food truck fare, hear environmental lectures, and see an exciting new nature project using native plants to restore and protect a nearby stream.

The annual Lancaster Native Plant and Wildlife Festival is a time to learn about, celebrate, and protect our local environment using native plants. Native flowering plants, shrubs, and trees are those that originated and developed in our region, unlike species introduced from other parts of the world. Think goldenrod, winterberry, and sycamore versus purple loosestrife, barberry, and callery pear. Native plants are important not only for local wildlife, they are critical to restoring our streams and rivers, and all the critters that call our waterways home.  

A man planting a tree seedling in a riparian buffer.
John Williamson of TeamAg, Inc., plants a sycamore seedling in the Overlook Park forest buffer. TeamAg works with the Stroud Center on dozens of farm conservation projects each year. Photo: Lancaster Clean Water Partners

New to this year’s festival is an 8-acre native habitat restoration area at Overlook Park in Manheim Township featuring trees, shrubs, and flowers that enhance nearby wetlands and a small stream that flows to the Little Conestoga Creek. Developed by Stroud Water Research Center, Manheim Township, the Alliance for the Chesapeake, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Lancaster Clean Water Partners, and many other partners, this project is part of a countywide campaign to protect clean fresh water by planting over 1 million trees and shrubs on 6,000 acres of streamside areas on farms, parks, and residential and business areas throughout the county. 

Lamonte Garber, the Stroud Center’s watershed restoration coordinator, will give a tour of the project to visitors who attend the festival.

Mark your calendar for Saturday, April 30, and we will see you there!

Volunteer to Care for Native Plants
You can help us nurture the new plants at Overlook Park. Register for the Stream Care Workday on June 4, part of Lancaster Water Week.

Students gathered near bundles of wodden stakes for securing tree shelters.
A woman rakes soil in a newly created planted bed.

About Overlook Park
Overlook Park is a community public space that hosts hundreds of visitors every day, many of whom walk, bike, or drive to enjoy this natural setting just north of Lancaster City. As such, this young streamside forest is a place where visitors can enjoy nature and see firsthand how these streamside plantings are reducing pollution, creating stream habitat, and feeding and sheltering wildlife and pollinators.