The third annual Spring Native Plant Swap of the Lehigh Valley was held at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center in Slatington on Saturday.

There were over 300 plants to choose from, featuring 100 species, to swap. The criteria to swap was identification that your plants or seeds were native to North America, must be labeled with scientific names and all seed packets must have at least 10 seeds.

If you did not have plants or seeds to swap, you could bring store or online seeds, gardening supplies like gloves, pots and plant labels to swap.

Maia Simon said, “Moths and butterflies larva feed the birds, so if you want to keep birds, plant native plants. The native oak is home to 400 types of larva that the birds rely on, which means a yard almost free of insects. In the words of Douglas Tallamy, American entomologist and ecologist, ‘No bugs, no birds.’

“Life is fueled by the energy captured from the sun by plants. It will be the plants that we use in our gardens that determine what nature will look like 10, 20 and 50 years.”