Salt-Tolerant Native Shrubs
In our area of southern tidewater Virginia, three salt-tolerant shrubs (or small trees) grow on pond shores and marsh edges. The most striking is Baccharis halimifolia, covered with white fuzz; the white blooms indicate the female plant. The fruits are covered with tufts of white silk that carry them to new destinations. It is known…
Raise Your Voice
A conviction that native plants are important is what motivated Ruth Douglas to raise her voice. Deciding to become active in their support was not an easy choice for Ruth, who had to overcome an inherently shy personality, but it’s a decision she does not regret. Her journey through deeper levels of commitment has given her…
Native Wildflowers: A Feast in the Fall
Our native wildflowers are still putting on a show, in addition to provisioning late season pollinators and butterflies searching for fuel to carry them through the winter. Some of those creatures hibernate right here, others are taking wing and heading south, but they are all adapted to count on the late season boost from those…
Generation Y Won’t Garden Because of Fear of Failure?
Millennials, especially the Gen Y batch, are proving a hard target for the nursery industry to get a bead on. They have a fear of failure, said a recent article written for professional growers. Furthermore, the article states that Gen Yers were urged to their best in school every day, (surprise!) to beat the competition;…
Adding Land to Cedars Natural Area Preserve
From Chris Ludwig, Chief Biologist, Virginia Division of Natural Heritage: “I understand that we are almost 90% of the way towards our fundraising goal for additional acreage on the tracts to enhance The Cedars Natural Area Preserve in Lee County Virginia. WAY TO GO VNPS!!!! Many of you will never see this preserve; it is…
Report From A Tagalong Spouse
Hosting the VNPS Annual Meeting at the Frontier Culture Museum was a great choice. If you haven’t been to the museum, it consists of about twelve exhibits of typical homesteads, (houses, barns, fields, etc.), of the people who originally inhabited North America, including the American Indians and those people who immigrated to the Atlantic coast…
Rescue, Reclaim, Restore: Annual Meeting 2015
In the unusual setting of a dairy barn, VNPS President, Nancy Vehrs, opened the 2015 Annual Meeting in Staunton with the quarterly gathering of the Board. After the traditional business session, (the nuts and bolts that keep VNPS running), Rod Walker, from the Blue Ridge Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (PRISM) was on hand…
The Importance of Preserving Our Natural Areas
This year members of the Virginia Native Plant Society will continue their support of natural area preservation throughout the state. These efforts take place at the local and regional level, and VNPS as a whole will focus on raising funds to support land acquisition to expand the Cedars Area Natural Area Preserve. The importance of…
Trees Bring People Together
Last Saturday five concerned groups joined forces to show their appreciation for a small park in the city of Alexandria, a park where the biggest shade trees are in danger of disappearing. VNPS members were joined by Tree Stewards, Master Naturalists, members of the local Gladiators basketball team, the West Alexandria Rotary Club, and the…
Can Invasive Plants Be Valuable?
Our Capital Naturalist, Alonso Abugattas, recently took action in response to a misinformed article that ran last week in a Virginia paper touting the benefits of invasive, non-native plants. We thought his comments deserving of a wider audience and he has kindly given us permission to print his letter to the editor of that paper,…