Meet in parking lot by 1:00 pm. Wear sturdy walking shoes and dress for the field with insect repellent, etc. Much of the walk will be on level ground on the White trail but the path down to Cabin Swamp is somewhat steep and narrow.
Volunteers Needed at the Strawberry Festival in Heathsville, May 25! Next month we have one of our most influential and fun Outreach Events, the Strawberry Festival at St. Stephen’s Church. This is a widely attended and popular event that attracts hundreds of visitors and is loads of fun.
Our April monthly Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant will be held on Thursday, April 18, at the Lancaster Community Library beginning at noon. The topic is "Protecting Your Shoreline with Native Plants" being presented by Carol Martin, a certified Virginia Master Gardener, and a board member of our NNVNPS Chapter.
Denise Greene, noted landscape designer and former owner of the native plant nursery, Sassafras Farms, will be our speaker at Lancaster Community Library at noon on Thursday, March 21th . She will be sharing her firsthand experience of the different ways we can incorporate native plants into our landscapes.
February Meeting will feature an evening Zoom program by biologist Maeve Coker, “Gardening for Wildlife: A Photographic Journey of my Essex County Habitat”. The meeting will begin at 7 pm with brief welcome and news, the POM report, and Program.
Mark your calendars now for our Annual New Year’s Day walk. Please join us on January 1, New Year’s Day, to see Virginia’s earliest flowering wildflower in bloom – our Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. This is a joint field trip sponsored by our Chapter and the NN Audubon Society and it has been held for many years. We will meet at Hickory Hollow NAP off of Regina Rd in Lancaster at 2:00 pm and have a leisurely 2 hour hike down to Cabin Swamp to see the Skunk Cabbages.
General Annual Meeting, Election of Officers, Presentation of the Budget, Thurs 16th
Program: The Amazing Pollinators Attracted to a Native Plant Garden by Biologist Maeve Coker
A brief meeting at Belle Isle State Park in the Visitor Center Meeting/Education Room followed by a Tour of the new Shoreline and plantings led by Park Manager Katy Sheperd and Carol Martin, part of the Master Gardener’s Shoreline Team. Bring a brown bag lunch and join us at noon before our Tour.
155 Fleet’s Bay Rd
White Stone, VA 22578
Friday, Sept. 15, 2pm-5pm
Saturday, Sept. 16 thru Sept. 24, 9am-5pm
Hours subject to change
Knowledgeable members of the Chapter will be on hand to help select a palette of plants or help with design questions. Chapter volunteers will also offer a variety of help and free educational materials including our revised Guide to Native Plants of the Northern Neck
Saturday, Sept. 16, 9am - noon and Sunday Sept. 24, 10am-1pm
The Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society (NNVNPS) is pleased to invite Chapter members and the public to a presentation at the historic Shiloh School on Thursday, May 18th starting at 12:30. The school and garden are located on Shiloh School Road off Jessie duPont Memorial Highway (Rt. 200) between Wicomico Church and Kilmarnock.
Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society invites Members and their friends to a Spring Walk at Hickory Hollow, Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 1 pm, to learn about Hickory Hollow and its many rare and wonderful plants and spring wildflowers.
Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society invites Members and their friends to a Spring Walk at Hickory Hollow, Sunday, April 30, 2023 at 1 pm, to learn about Hickory Hollow and its many rare and wonderful plants and spring wildflowers.
The Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society (NNVNPS) is delighted to welcome member Pat Lust as our in-person speaker for our, Thursday, April 20th meeting at the Wicomico Parish Church, 5191 Jessie Ball DuPont Memorial Hwy (Route 200) in Wicomico Church. Pat will present an in-depth program on a wide variety of techniques for propagating plants.
On April 6 from 9:00 am to noon a joint VNPS and NN Master Naturalist project have a garden work day.
On March 28 from 9:00 am to noon a joint VNPS and NN Master Naturalist project have a garden work day.
Zoom Presentation “Rewilding our Landscapes”
Our March meeting of the Northern Neck Chapter of VNPS will be a Zoom presentation on Thursday, March 16th at 7 pm. Email nnvnps@gmail.com for zoom information.
Join Virginia Landscape Designer, Susan Abraham, for a presentation on using our beautiful native plants to restore landscapes ranging from small suburban gardens to large meadows and farms. Susan writes that “Our lands and waters are suffering from a host of environmental challenges. Re-wilding strategies and techniques lay the foundation for landscapes to heal, grow and thrive”.
General Meeting 12:00 pm, Lawn Weeds & Native Alternatives for Lawns, Member Paula Boundy, at Lancaster Public Library, Board meeting 10:00am
New Year’s Day is the perfect day to get outside and start the New Year off naturally and focused on plants. A number of years ago our Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society started a New Year’s Day Walk at Hickory Hollow Natural Area Preserve but the scourge of Covid forced that to be canceled for the past few years. But alas, the Walk has been reinstated this new year for Sunday, Jan. 1 at 1 pm with the co-sponsorship of the NN Audubon. The temperature is predicted to be in the fifties.
The Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society is delighted to be presenting a Zoom program entitled The Least Welcome Plants of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain on Thursday, November 17th at 1:00 pm. Invasive plants that have been introduced to our area are far and away, our least favorite plants. From the less-than-Heavenly Tree of Heaven to more recent invaders like Purple Fountain Grass, Ecologist Dr. Sylvan Kaufman will introduce you to the many problems caused by invasive plants of our coastal plain environments and why these plants are so wildly successful. She will also address some of the best management practices to manage and eliminate these invasive plants. This program is free and accessible by computer or smart phone.
Join member Carolyn Quinn for a tour of Dug In Farms and enjoy refreshments from the farm and the company of fellow members and native plant lovers.
All programs are free and open to the public
A brief business meeting will precede the tour.
The annual Northern Neck Native Plant Society Native Plant Sale will again be held at Dug In Farm on Fleets Bay Rd, off Rt. 3 in White Stone.
The Chapter’s native plants will be available for purchase from 9 am Saturday, Sept. 17 through Saturday, September 24. On Saturday’s during the sale, knowledgeable Chapter members will be available to assist from 9 am until 1 pm.
All members and guests are invited to the first live presentation by NNVNPS in two years!
This open to all meeting on Thursday, April 21st, begins at noon in Kilmarnock’s Lancaster Community Library meeting room (second floor).
Old Court House Garden Cleanup. March 29, 10am, Old Court House Garden, Heathsville. Watch for more details from Bonita Russell.
The Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society (NNVNPS) is opening its 2022 public program series with a public virtual meeting to be held on Thursday, March 17th at 1:00 pm in the comfort of your own home.
The Chapter’s Zoom presentation is entitled “Great Natives for Tough Sites: Using Native Plant Communities as a Guide for Better Designs” and presented by Janet Davis (photos above), owner of Hill House Farm and Nursery, a leader in raising native plants of the mid-Atlantic.
Be sure to visit the NNNPS Fall Native Plant Sale, being held this year at Dug In Farms off of Fleets Bay Rd every day from Sept 18 – Oct 10 to find beautiful Northern Neck native plants to grace your gardens. Native Plant Society experts will be on hand Saturday morning during the sale from 9:00-12:00 to help you pick the perfect plants for your garden.
A special emphasis on the NNNPS Plant Sale are Shoreline Plants. Dug In Farm will be having a variety of Shoreline Native Plants for sale and is now accepting orders for them. Please see Carolyn at Dug In for more information.
This is a free presentation titled “The Living Shoreline” that will be presented as a Zoom (virtual) program on Thursday, Sept. 16th at 7 pm. The speaker is noted marine biologist and educator, Karen Duhring, from the Center for Coastal Zone Management at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
The Northern Neck Chapter of Virginia, National Audubon Society is continuing the Zoom programs for 2021 with a free virtual program on Monday, June 7th at 7 pm entitled "Red-cockaded Woodpeckers in Virginia”. This can be viewed on a home computer and is open to the public, details below.
The actual in-the-field butterfly count will take place on May 25th and follows the North American Butterfly Association’s count protocol as well as COVID-19 protocols. This citizen science data project began in 1993 and collects data from over 450 sites. It is similar to the oldest continuing citizen science project in the US (119 years), the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count. Details on this butterfly count will be provided at the workshop as well as in local papers next week.
The workshop will help in the identification of our local spring butterflies that may be seen during the actual count the following week. Further, life cycle and host plant information will be presented for the butterflies. The goal is to help all attendees improve their skills at identification and understanding of our local butterflies and their native host plants.
The Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society is offering a free and open to the public virtual (Zoom) meeting to be held on Thursday, April 15th at 7:00 pm in the comfort of your own home. The Zoom info is shown below.
The Chapter will have a presentation entitled “A Milkweed Safari - Native Milkweeds & their Wildlife” by Alonso Abugattas of Arlington, VA. He will lead us through a number of Virginia species of milkweed (Asclepias - we have 13 species in VA) while discussing its biology and describing much of the wildlife that relies on this native as well as why many stay away from it.
Alonso is a well known metropolitan DC naturalist, environmental educator, and storyteller while earning a living as the Natural Resources Manager for Arlington County Parks, VA. He has been trained as a master gardener and was instrumental in helping to start and subsequently teach for two Virginia Master Naturalist chapters in Northern Virginia. He is a co-founder of the Washington Area Butterfly Club, held several offices, including president, for the Potowmack Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society and authored a book on The Reptiles and Amphibians of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. Most outstanding is his personal blog "Capital Naturalist" as well as his Facebook group Capital Naturalist which contains an immense amount of natural history information. And he is just a great guy besides!
The presentation will also include the Chapter’s April Plant of the Month by NN VNPS Board member Betsy Washington which for April is the bright yellow flowered Marsh Marigold, one of our first harbingers of spring and common now at cabin Swamp in Hickory Hollow Natural Area Preserve.
The Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society kicks off 2021 with a free and open to the public virtual (Zoom) meeting to be held on Thursday, March 18th at 1:00 pm in the comfort of your own home.
On Tuesday, March 9th, the Northern Neck Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalists will present a Free Program at 7:30 pm entitled … 50 Shades of Pollination
