At our annual membership meeting on November 20, members of Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay celebrated our inaugural year with a Year in Review video by chapter vice-president, Bill Smith. But first we covered the annual chapter business. Chapter election results – Secretary Sue Williams reported that our appointed board of directors were elected by unanimous […] Continue reading "2024 Year in Review"
Support Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay this Giving Tuesday! 2024 was a busy year for Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay. To support our mission of native plants and natural landscapes thriving in every community, we accomplished the following:16,500+ free native seedlings distributed9000+ sq ft of native habitat supported2000+ native plants grown from seed & distributed100+ native trees […] Continue reading "Help Us Grow"
Since January, members of Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay have been busy propagating native plants at the USGS Bee Lab in Laurel, Maryland, under the guidance of Sam Droege and Sydney Shumar. We didn’t know what to expect when we signed up for this amazing opportunity, and it has proven to be a great experience that […] Continue reading "Native Plant Propagation at the USGS Bee Lab"
This fall has been a busy one for Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay (WOCB), starting with a field trip in early September through our participation at the Chesapeake Natives Fall Festival the last weekend of October. Whether virtual or in-person, there was something everyone. On September 14, we cosponsored the Maryland Native Plant Society’s annual “Parks […] Continue reading "Fall 2024 at a Glance"
Wild Ones’ Native Garden Design program is gaining national attention for its innovative approach to promoting native plant landscaping and was recently featured in a New York Times article by Margaret Roach. The article highlights our Native Garden Design program; you can read it via this gift article link. Since the article’s release on September […] Continue reading "Wild Ones Featured in New York Times"
Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay is deeply rooted in natives, promoting native plants for a healthy planet. We accomplish this through education, advocacy, and collaboration. And this fall, education and collaboration is all about native seed collecting! To date, we’ve given presentations on native seed collection at our local college, the College of Southern Maryland (in collaboration […] Continue reading "Deeply Rooted in Native Seed Collecting"
Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay is deeply rooted in natives, promoting native plants for a healthy planet. We accomplish this through education, advocacy, and collaboration. On August 3rd, Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay and Nurture Natives partnered with the St. Mary’s Public Library in Charlotte Hall to present our first presentation of the year on “Biodiversity and […] Continue reading "Biodiversity and Native Gardening 101"
Native plant gardeners are often plagued by damage from landscape companies with staff that know only how to “cut lawns and string trim anything that looks like a weed”. As a result, we often hear sad stories about native gardens being cut to the ground, mowed or otherwise decimated by such companies hired to cut […] Continue reading "Cues to Care"
International Youth Day celebrates the power and potential of young people. And Wild Ones Chesapeake Bay can think of no better way to celebrate than to recognize chapter member Esther Bonney and her award-winning project, Nurture Natives. Nurture Natives cofounders, Esther Bonney and Samantha Rutherford, won the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‘s 2024 Presidential Environmental Youth […] Continue reading "Congratulations! Nurture Natives Wins EPA 2024 Presidential Environmental Youth Award!"
How time flies being a birder, which sparked becoming a lover of native plants. Back in 2015 I helped to launch a new initiative from the National Audubon Society – Creating Bird-Friendly Communities. Audubon wanted to help educate us – native plants provide food for our beneficial insects, which provide food for birds. This was […] Continue reading "Gardening for Wildlife – Creating Healthy Habitats for All"