NARGS is for gardening enthusiasts interested in alpine, saxatile, and low-growing perennials. It encourages the study and cultivation of wildflowers that grow well among rocks, whether such plants originate above treeline or at lower elevations. Through its publications, meetings, and garden visits, NARGS provides extensive opportunities for both beginners and experts to expand their knowledge of plant cultivation and propagation, and of construction, maintenance, and design of special interest gardens. Woodland gardens, bog gardens, raised beds, planted walls, container gardens, and alpine berms are all addressed.
NARGS Policy Statement on Plant or Seed Collection
The North American Rock Garden Society is dedicated to understanding, preserving, growing, selecting, propagating, and appreciating the natural flora of the earth, especially those plants amenable to rock gardening. Above all, we support efforts to protect wild habitats as the sources for genetic variations and naturally thriving plants for generations to come.
We believe habitat destruction, both planned and accidental, is responsible for the greatest loss of habitats and species in the world today; and we deplore this situation. We strive to support those organizations around the world that seek to preserve valuable wildlife habitats.
We are against the wholesale collecting, for resale, of wild plants from public lands, especially the rarer plants, and abhor the practice of misleading the public by calling such collected plants nursery propagated by any stretch of the definition.
We encourage collectors to follow all local, national, and international laws when collecting seed. Be aware that rare plants merit special consideration and should not be distributed, or propagules taken, unless there is sufficient local stock to successfully perpetuate the population. In most cases this means minimal or no collecting.
Plant material collected after 2014 in countries that have ratified the Nagoya Protocol (https://www.cbd.int/abs/doc/