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Native Plant Marketing and Education Pilot Program for Nurseries The Native Plant Marketing and Education Pilot Program for Nurseries (Nursery Pilot) is a regional initiative originating in Orange County with collaboration from Metropolitan Water District. The Nursery Pilot is designed to support the growing demand for California native plants and to increase their availability in retail nurseries across the region. Figure 1: Ceonothus Ray Hortmun, photo credit Col}cope The Nursery Pilot went from conceptual to actionable with the assistance of WaterNow Alliance's Project Accelerator Award. The Nursery Pilot's approach was further solidified after a statewide nursery survey, administered in collaboration with WaterNow Alliance and the California Native Plant Society (CNPS), found that nurseries were willing to carry more California native plants, but they needed more resources. The most requested resources were nursery staff training on native plants, plant signage, and point -of -sale promotional materials. The Nursery Pilot has several objectives: 1) to encourage nurseries in the pilot area to consistently carry more regionally native plants species, 2) to develop free nursery staff training materials on the care and maintenance of California native plants in the nursery setting, 3) to make California native plants more easily identifiable with point of sale educational and promotional materials, 4) to encourage consumer demand and increase sales of California native plants at local nurseries, and S) to connect consumers to local nurseries and the wide variety of California native plants with free web resources through Calscape.org. To meet Nursery Pilot objectives, and to address key nursery needs, the water agencies identified three core programmatic deliverables and two key partners to carry out the project. Moulton Niguel Water District will partner with Tree of Life Nursery, the largest supplier of California native plants in the state, to develop an 8-part video training series targeted to nursery staff that will provide education on the proper care, maintenance, and watering of native plants in a nursery setting, and on the fundamentals of native plant water requirements, planting techniques, merchandising tips, and how to communicate native plant care maintenance to the consumer. In partnership with CNPS, the videos will be made available through a custom-built online training module on Calscape.org, the largest online database dedicated to California native plants. The video trainings and their accompanying written training materials will be free; individuals who complete the training program will receive a certificate and their nursery will receive credit toward program compliance for educating their staff members. CNPS will also develop the ability for nurseries to create free customized profiles on Calscape.org, where they can provide a business description, their hours of