Our chapter is official and it is time to get out the word! The Tree Fredericksburg Native Plant Festival on September 28, 2025 was the perfect opportunity to set up a table and reach out to like-minded folks! But first we were lucky enough to hear Karen Tavakoli and Alonso... Read more

Our final garden tour of the season found us at the home of Jeanne and Will Hartzell.  It was a fantastic opportunity to visit a property that meets HOA approval in the front yard and fully embraces native plantings in the back.  The Hartzells are 7 years into transforming their... Read more

August 2025 found us right along the Rappahannock River,  just downstream from Fredericksburg, at Ruth Landry-Stone and Lee Stone’s home.  They have owned their property for three years and are at the mid-way process of rejuvenating land along our chapter’s namesake river.  Their home is surrounded by trees and understory... Read more

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society One of the earliest and most reliable trees for fall color is our gorgeous Black Gum, Nyssa sylvatica. This native deciduous tree reliably ignites into fiery shades of scarlet and occasionally red, orange, even purple in the fall, often by late September.... Read more

We spent a beautiful and warm morning in late July visiting two homes in downtown Fredericksburg.  We were honored by having Nancy Vehrs, President of the Virginia Native Plant Society join us on the tours! Over 40 of us started the morning at the home of Ernie and Lynn Ackermann... Read more

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society Great Blue Lobelia is a lovely late-blooming perennial in the Bellflower family that flaunts tall blue spires of flowers for weeks on end in the late summer-fall. Also called Blue Cardinal Flower or just Great Lobelia, this relative of the well-known red... Read more

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society One of my all-time favorite pollinator plants, Short-toothed Mountain-mint, has just recently been added to the flora of the Northern Neck and I am thrilled to include it as the July Plant of the Month. Several large populations of this incredible pollinator... Read more

By Betsy Washington, Northern Neck Native Plant Society American Elderberry is a common, deciduous shrub that lights up our landscape from mid-May through June with huge and profuse clusters of white flowers that literally form a lacy veil over the shrub. Each flower is only about ¼” across but is... Read more