The Florida Association of Native Nurseries (FANN), a premier provider of practical native plant education for design and green industry professionals, is proud and thrilled to be partnering with the School of Forest, Fisheries & Geomatics Sciences (SFFGS) at the University of Florida to host the 2026 Florida Native Plant Seminar. An industry continuing education and networking event, the seminar will be held at the UF IFAS Straughn Professional Development Center in Gainesville, Florida, on Wednesday and Thursday, November 4-5, 2026.

Landscape architects and green industry professionals already know of UF strengths in horticultural sciences, Florida-Friendly Landscaping™ and landscape architecture. They may be less familiar with IFAS’ SFFGS or may still know it by the old name, School of Forest Resources and Conservation. Nearly 90 years old, the SFFGS provides natural resource education, cutting-edge research and statewide extension outreach across an array of interdisciplinary certificate and degree programs in the fields of forest resources and conservation, fisheries and aquatic sciences, and geomatics (the science and technology of collecting and analyzing all kinds of data about our Earth). The school’s faculty and students are renowned for their applied field experience and work in ecological restoration, geospatial mapping and sustainable land management. Key programs, labs and research initiatives related to Florida native plants include:

The UF IFAS Native Plant Nursery operating on about two acres of outdoor and greenhouse propagation space, this initiative functions as a working laboratory focused on development native plants and seeds, evaluating propagation methods and increasing early-generation plant materials for regional restoration. The nursery has produced tens of thousands of native plants, including many unusual species, since its inception during the Covid pandemic, engaged hundreds of UF students from all majors as planting, research and outreach volunteers, and distributed thousands of plants to the community in addition to planting thousands on campus.

Faculty and graduate researchers run applied trials on native plant establishment as part of their ongoing restoration ecology and propagation research. This includes testing container substrates for native grass production, using special materials to mitigate drought stress during outplantings and developing propagation and planting protocols for rare and imperiled native species. The school has supported multiple annual Groundcover Restoration and Enhancement Workshops with over 100 industry, public agency and academic professionals coming together to talk about native groundcover planting, seeding and management. Multiple classes focus on native plant communities and how these support biodiversity, improve soil and water quality, and build resistance to aggressive invasive invasions in terrestrial and wetland systems.

The school manages vast outdoor research lands including the 2800 acre Austin Cary Forest, a research forest campus used for wild native seed collection, habitat restoration trials including burning research related to longleaf pine wiregrass ecosystems, and site preparation research to manage seed banks prior to planting. The school also manages the Natural Areas Teaching Laboratory, NATL, a 60-acre outdoor classroom and conservation area on campus dedicated to teaching ecology, biodiversity and environmental restoration. Two of our seminar’s Wednesday morning outdoor activities will take place at NATL.

The new Florida Native Seed Partnership is being developed at SFFGS in partnership with the Florida Wildflower Foundation. This is a critical statewide effort to develop reliable native seed supply, including Florida ecotype seeds, to support restoration and sustainable, ecological plant production and use throughout the state. Every state in the union is working on native seed supply as the National Academies of Sciences has identified the lack of seed as a major obstacle to ecological preservation and restoration, and thus as a national security threat.

Partnering with the University of Florida enables seminar attendees to benefit from the extensive research, teaching and extension strenths of our flagship land grant university and the incredible talented pipeline of students who will be our next generation of horticulturists, growers, land managers, restoration ecologists, landscape architects and designers, and business and political leaders.