NANPS's key purpose is to provide information and to inspire an appreciation of native plants with an aim to restoring healthy ecosystems across the continent.

[13] In 1988, it sponsored its first native plant propagation workshop, and established wildflower gardens tour in Guelph and Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

[14] In 1994, the Canadian Wildflowe Society co-published (with the Federation of Ontario Naturalists) the first booklet on the native plants of Carolinian Canada with conservation and horticultural advice.

[15] In 2003, it purchased a five-hectare (13-acre) parcel of Zinkan Island Cove, a provincially designated ANSI (Area of Natural and Scientific Interest) on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario.

In 2000 the North American Native Plant Society decided to stop supporting the publication of Wildflower magazine,[16] and replaced it with "The Blazing Star'.