Here are designs for two cards to use at nurseries as you shop for plants for your garden. The cards can be printed on a home computer on business card paper stock, front and back.
If the nursery does not have your plant choice in stock, leave them a card. Or, you may notice a nursery is selling an invasive species that is listed in our publication, Control of Invasive Non-Native Plants: A Guide for Gardeners and Homeowners in the Mid-Atlantic Region (PDF, ~121 KB). If so, leave them a card. Try to leave cards with the nursery's plant buyer, or request that it be directed there.
The cards are a tangible way for plant retailers to see that more and more people are seeking native plants. By using the cards, we hope to inspire retailers to stock more native and fewer invasive, non-native plants.
Let us know how these cards work for you!
How to Print These Cards
The cards are designed to be printed front and back on business card paper stock. This stock is available for laser and ink jet printers at office supply stores. The paper package will contain instructions on how to format the card documents to print on your brand of printer, with your software. Each page of card stock has 10 cards - 2 columns of 5 cards each.
You can type up the cards yourself, or you can download the two Microsoft Word documents that are provided here, "cardfront.rtf" and "cardback.rtf." Each document consists of one page. Click on the links below to get the rtf documents. Your browser may ask you if you want to save or run the document. You should first save it to your disk and then load it into your word processor later. You will notice that one column has the text for the native plant card, and the other column has the text for the invasive exotic card.
- Download card's front in rtf format
- Download card's back in rtf format
- Download both rtf documents in a zip file
Print the "cardfront.rtf" document first, making as many copies as you wish. Then turn the paper over and use it to print the "cardback.rtf" document, with the same number of copies. The columns for the two different card types will match up when you print.
You will need to know how to insert the paper to print front and back. You may want to run a test sheet of paper first. Put a pencil mark at the top of the page and run it through the printer. The location of the pencil mark on the printed page will help you determine how to insert the paper to print on the back. Also, before using the stock, it's helpful to hold your test sheet up to a sheet of the card stock, to make sure the margins match up with the perforations on the card stock. If they don't match up, you may need to adjust the column or page margins. Finally, when you print with card stock, check your printer's instructions. You may be told to prevent paper jams by adjusting the printer so that the paper feeds straight through instead of wrapping around.