June is shaping up to be a busy month for the New River Valley Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society, with three events taking place over the next two weeks.
On Saturday, June 18, the chapter is planning its annual Native Plant Sale from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the SEEDS Nature Center, located at 107 Wharton St. SE in Blacksburg.
The sale offers gardeners the opportunity to create a habitat for native wildlife in their own backyard. Some of the benefits of planting natives include providing nectar for pollinators and expanding food sources for birds.
The organizers have created an inventory list so you can plan your purchases in advance. Go to https://vnps.org/newriver/native-plant-sale-2022/.
On Saturday, June 25, Pandapas Pond will once again be the site of National Forest Appreciation Day. Chapter members will hold an educational event there from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on the theme “Fruits of the Forest”. (Go to the lower parking lot, then walk down the road to the pond, near the restroom building.)
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Several years ago, at the request of Mary Rhoades, then NRV Chapter President, the Blacksburg City Council passed a resolution declaring “National Forest Appreciation Day” in Blacksburg to be the last Saturday in June. of each year.
“Blacksburg is so lucky to have the Jefferson National Forest just outside of town,” Rhoades wrote in an email. “There are so many benefits for local residents that come from being close to the National Forest.”
Finally, one of two deadlines remaining this year to apply to the Chapter for a Native Garden Project Grant comes June 30. (The final deadline will be September 30.)
“These grant proposals focus on educating young people about the importance of native plants to the survival of native ecosystems and their relationship to our own existence,” according to the organization’s background papers.
“Youth” includes grades four through twelfth, as well as college and graduate students, and all nonprofit public youth groups. Among the main guidelines, the applicant and the location of the garden must be within the chapter’s service area, which includes the counties of Bland, Giles, Wythe, Pulaski, Carroll, Floyd, and Montgomery, as well as the cities of Christiansburg and Blacksburg, and the town of Radford. . The garden should be located in an accessible public space, with signage identifying it as a garden of native plants, and young people should be involved in all phases of the project’s development. Grant amounts are usually between $200 and $500.
Full information is available at https://vnps.org/newriver/projects/grants/.
All of these activities support the chapter’s mission, which is to “promote the conservation of Virginia’s native plants and habitats.”
“I don’t think people know what we’re doing,” chapter treasurer Carol Schwobel said by email earlier this year. Indeed, the work of many environmental organizations often goes unnoticed, as we go about our daily lives, taking the landscapes around us for granted. But in addition to the grant program, the chapter’s activities range from donating copies of “The Flora of Virginia” to local libraries to removing invasive non-native plants from suburban and rural sites in the region to a variety of other projects.
The native plant movement received a valuable boost with the 2007 publication of “Bringing Nature Home” by Professor Doug Tallamy of the University of Delaware – an accessible primer on how native species work together, as well as a warning about how far the American landscape has come. natural balance. One of the many statistics the NRV chapter cites in its papers reads: “There has been an almost 50% reduction in the size of populations of many bird species over the past 50 years. , and an estimated 12% of bird species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss and encroachment by non-native plant species (Talamy 2007)
For those who wish to become more involved, the chapter meets at 7 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month, except from June to August. Meetings usually feature a guest speaker who talks about native plant topics. The pandemic has forced online meetings, but the usual venue is the Karr Activity Center at Warm Hearth Village.
To find out more, visit https://vnps.org or email nrchaptervnps@gmail.com.
