News & Updates
Registration for the 2026 annual meeting (2-4 October 2026) in Wakefield, Virginia is open! 1 September 2026
The latest Sempervirens is here! 16 August 2026
Winners of the fifth annual Wildflower of the Year T-shirt Design Contest have been announced. 27 March 2026
Video recordings of both sessions of the 2026 Annual Workshop are available in a Vimeo showcase. 27 March 2026
Thank you for supporting our 2025 fundraiser benefiting the Flora of Virginia. The campaign has ended. If you would like to support the Flora, please donate directly. 3 March 2026
Introducing the 2026 Wildflower of the Year, Ghost Pipes (Monotropa uniflora). Read all about it. 25 January 2026
Now with its own menu pick: Botanizing with Marion. Â 20 June 2025
• A New Online Dictionary of Virginia Botanical Etymology. This dictionary, compiled and edited by Michael Charters, lists Latin, Greek, and other derivations of botanical and biographic names in Virginia. View the Online Dictionary here. 20 August 2024
Join
Become a Member:
Support Our Mission.
Donate
Support VNPS with
your donation today.
Upcoming Events
Find Field Trips, Meetings, Programs and Plant Sales.
Find a Chapter
Get involved in your
local VNPS chapter.
The Bug Guy Talks Zika
The hot topic of mosquitoes and the potential for spread of the dreaded Zika virus created quite a buzz at the May 12 chapter meeting of Potowmack chapter. Michael Raupp, Ph.D., Professor of Entomology at the University of Maryland, was scheduled to speak on the topic “Bugs Make the World Go Round,” but the recent news…
Best Management Practices for Lawn Care
Important decisions about how to maintain a lawn area have received a lot of press as ideas  change about the ways we use, and treat, this part of the landscape. Rod Simmons spoke on the subject recently, and has kindly agreed to share answers to some of the follow-up questions from his presentation at the…
A Suburban Mushroom
Just a few weeks after learning about mushrooms at the VNPS Workshop, Plants and Their Friends: Exploring Partnerships Above and Below Ground, I got out of my car, wandered across to see what was blooming in the front yard. There, in bloom, was a wood poppy that a friend had given us a few years…
Imperiled Purple Milkweed at Huntley Meadows Park
Huntley Meadows probably has the largest population of purple milkweed in the state according to Gary Fleming, Vegetation Ecologist for Virginia’s Natural Heritage Program. For a number of years, through efforts begun by its Past President, Marianne Mooney, the Potowmack Chapter has been providing support to Huntley. When recent water control efforts caused major disruption…
Landscape Design for Biodiversity Education and Restoration
Part I.  Hope ~Paying attention to local natural systems teaches us how to bring forth the hidden potential of nature in areas where others have lost hope. During our ecosystem surveys one of the primary things we find is hope. Although 300 years of landscape degradation have had a profound negative effect on the biodiversity…
Here Come the Bryophytes!
All of a sudden, mosses, liverworts, and friends are on a minor upswing in popularity. That thin green mat cushioning your feet and plastering tree trunks, that lowly layer of who-knows-what, is now more popular with the botanist and gardener than ever; it has spawned new field guides, classes, and restoration projects, as well as…
Trout Lillies and Trouts Signal Spring!
I am a gardener and an angler. In the spring, these two passions vie for my attention simultaneously because gardens and trout streams wake up from winter at around the same moment. Just as warming ground stimulates seeds to germinate, bulbs to flower and trees to leaf out and bloom, warming activity on a trout…
Post-Wild Planting Solutions
We may be planting in a post-wild world, but all the things we love about nature and the natural world are still the things we need and should be planting in our landscapes today. Thomas Rainer spoke to a full house Sunday at the Manassas Community Center, delivering a message that spoke right to the…
Big Tree Hunt
The College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech is the creator of the  Virginia Big Tree Program, and the New River Chapter recently took a field trip to learn more about it.  The purpose of the program is to  find and record the biggest examples of many species of trees in Virginia. Measurements…
Wetlands
I cringe when the word ”Improve”, or “Improvement” is used about land. It’s applied, of course, to describe the process that adapts land for human uses such as farming or construction. This isn’t improvement in any conventional sense of the word. In the 500 or so year history of European use of American land, the…
A New Native Plant Mini Series on YouTube
Introducing a new series of videos! These are truly Mini in length, but mighty in content; each featuring one or two native plants at a time. Plant characteristics, faunal associations, and uses in the home landscape are covered. We think you will love these informative little doses of native love! The producer, a member of…