Celebrating two years as a chartered chapter, Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay held their annual meeting on November 18. Annual member meetings are a foundational element of chapter life at Wild Ones, offering more than a chance to fulfill procedural duties—they’re an opportunity to reflect, recognize, and re-energize.
After an overview of Wild Ones’ mission, vision, and values, our chapter officers provided results of our annual election, membership updates, and financial updates. Congratulations on our chapter officers who were re-elected or newly-elected to their two-year terms:
- Vice President – William Smith
- Treasurer – Emily Hansroth
- Secretary – Miranda Yourick
Continuing in the second year of their two-year terms are:
- President – Marlene Smith
- Membership Chair – Lynne Wheeler
With these formalities out of the way, we shared the numerous accomplishments of our chapter volunteers this year, followed by highlights of our education, advocacy, and collaborations.
Chapter Accomplishments
Our members participated in an amazing 22 plant and seed swaps and giveaways, with most of the plants and seeds coming from our collaboration with Bona Terra’s Plant Grant program. In addition, our members grew over 2700 native plants at the USGS Bee Lab and distributed them at 6 events.
We have continued to support over 7500 sq ft of native habitat, to include planting over 500 native trees, shrubs, and perennials this year.
And we contributed over 3 dozen species of native plant seeds to support our 4 local seed libraries.
This year saw record numbers in our public outreach initiatives. Our members were busy year-round sharing our passion for native plants through outreach tables at events, live and virtual presentations (some with guest speakers), workshops, garden tours, and our bimonthly garden chats. One of the strategies we used to expand our outreach was to cohost and/or promote events with other local Wild Ones chapters or other nonprofit organizations that share a similar passion for native plants.
To spread our message far and wide, we are growing our connections through email subscriptions, social media, and our web blogs. If you are not following us online, we encourage you to subscribe to our YouTube channel, follow us on our chapter ‘s Facebook page, and join our Facebook group to become part of our conversations! And if you have an interest in writing posts for our social media channels or our website, please let us know. We are always looking for content!
Education, Advocacy, and Collaboration
This year, a major focus of our education centered around promoting the statewide Maryland Native Plants Program and its resources. Seen here is an excerpt of the flyer that we created to promote this statewide program. The flyer and additional information are available on our news blog by scanning the QR code.
You can watch our recorded presentations on our YouTube channel, including the presentation that we hosted earlier this year on the MD native plant and invasive plant bills. You can also access an online PDF of the NEW Maryland Native Plant Guide for the Piedmont Region. It is a beautiful resource, and hard copies will be available for sale through the Maryland Native Plant Society website, with two additional guides scheduled for publication in 2026 (Coastal Plains Region) and 2027 (Mountain Region).
Advocacy was also a strong focus of our chapter in 2025. We supported Bona Terra’s zoning request to allow on-site sales at their new nursery. Members wrote online testimonies, and Bill and I attended the hearing in person, where I spoke in support of Bona Terra. The approval of onsite sales at Bona Terra provides more access to native plants in our region. Since October 2023, our chapter has hosted 12 seedling giveaways, distributing over 56,000 seedlings and over 38,000 milkweed seeds to members of our local community.
Moving forward into 2026, we’re partnering with other native plant advocates in the state to make May “Maryland Native Plant Month”.
Signatures are still being collected on our online letter of support. If you’d like to sign the letter to show your support, it takes less than a minute.
Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay is deeply rooted in cultivating partnerships through collaboration. On a local level, we partnered with the Leonardtown Butterfly Trail, St. Mary’s County Garden Club, and the University of Maryland Master Gardeners to relaunch and promote Leonardtown’s Butterfly Trail. Our partnership will allow us to share resources at public events to reach more people, and we are working to develop a new Butterfly Trail brochure and plant ID signs for local gardens.
And we continued to partner with Nurture Natives, a local youth-led nonprofit, on local activities, including our “Build a Bee House” program at the Forrest Tech Center in Leonardtown and the Early Learning Center at the College of Southern Maryland in LaPlata. Together we built 24 bee houses with over 180 youth. We appreciated the opportunity to enhance our youth-based offerings to our community through a partnership with Nurture Natives, Wild Ones and Crown Bees.
Wild Ones’ growing national impact on native landscaping and our chapter’s grassroots activities sparked an interest from the BBC Natural History Unit. BBC was on-site filming at a local nursery, a local event, and a local member garden. We anticipate the release of the BBC documentary in the spring of 2026!
Special Guest Speaker
We were excited to have as our special guest, Esther Bonney, Founder and Director of Nurture Natives. Esther shared her Nurture Natives journey with us. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear Esther speak about “How Nurture Natives is Revitalizing Native Ecosystems Through Youth Leadership.”
Esther’s work has earned national honors, including the EPA’s Presidential Environmental Youth Award, the National 4-H Youth in Action Award, and the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. Now a freshman at the University of Maryland, Esther is pursuing a dual degree in Environmental Science & Policy and Violin Performance, with a pre-law focus. Through her advocacy and programming, she is inspiring a new generation of young people to understand and act on the vital connection between mental well-being and the health of our environment.
Esther is a nationally recognized activist working at the intersection of youth mental health and native biodiversity conservation. Under her leadership, Nurture Natives empowers young people through native biodiversity restoration and environmental education and has educated over 10,000 youth, planted more than 2.4 million native seeds, and distributed over 70,000 seedlings across the East Coast.
Help Us Continue to Grow!
If you would like to support Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay programs and activities and show gratitude and appreciation for our work, please consider a donation to our chapter to help fund our future endeavors in the community. Or perhaps you’d like to help grow our chapter by joining our chapter or giving a gift membership to a friend or family member who shares our passion for native plants.
Attention Wild Ones Chapter Leaders/Officers
Required by Wild Ones Chapter Bylaws, a well-planned annual meeting, whether held in person or virtually, brings members together to celebrate your chapter’s impact, strengthen community, and inspire continued action for native plants and natural landscapes. There are numerous helpful resources on the Wild Ones National members’ website. I highly recommend checking them out:
Powerpoint template and helpful links
Be inspired by Wild Ones National annual meetings
Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay is deeply rooted in native plants and cultivating partnerships, while striving to educate, advocate, and collaborate to connect people and native plants for a healthy planet. Our vision is native plants and natural landscapes thriving in every community. Check out our Events page, Google calendar, Facebook, and/or Instagram for our upcoming events. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and email list!
