Name: Wildflower Up-Potting
Start: 2026-04-25T10:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-05-30T10:00:00-04:00
Location: Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum

Join us and all our community grown seedlings. Up pot them into trays so they can get bigger and stronger and then into your garden spaces.
About this Event

Join us at Matthaei Botanical Gardens for a fun community event where you move baby plants into bigger containers so they can grow strong. Learn with us, share your extras and take advantage of our community overflow area. You'll leave with lots of up-potted babies, connection with fellow nature lovers and increased growing skills!

For best results, seedling should have at least two sets of true leaves. Many people try to up-pot by the time their seedlings are 2” tall. We are dependant on the outdoor weather, so this event might be too soon for our outdoor growing participants.

Don't despair if your growth was spotty, just shrug and bring them anyway. Our community will happily share our bounty and send everyone home with transplanted seedlings. After up-potting indoor grown seedlings, we encourage everyone to harden them outdoors slowly, so they can get strong enough for fluctuating weather conditions.

Remember that this series is intended as a big experiment in community scaling, we are care-takers, not really owners. The organizers hope you can practice flexibility as we work through the excitement and unpredictability of nature. We will have trays and soil, water and space to work.

This is a donation-supported, volunteer driven event. Please donate on-site to help us continue our offerings all year long! We want everyone to have nature, no matter their personal situation, so we suggest a donation for each cell up-potted between complimentary (free) and $2.

Bring it all back: We beg you to bring all your trays and domes back (with as few or as many plants as you have). Remember we want to reuse everything and hope to gather everything back this spring so that we can clean and rely upon them for next year. We also hate buying plastic and want to reuse everything, so treat them gently and think of that plastic as a gift from our ancestors. Do you have any retail-purchased plug flats (usually between 38 and 50 cells per tray) at home???? Bring them too!!!!!

There will be an orientation session at the start of each block. Matthaei doors open at 10am. Come early if you don't want to miss the walkthrough. For others, arrive any time and stay with us as long as you like.