Tag Archives: native plants

Events, Meetings, Previous Events, Previous Meetings

If You Plant It, They Will Come!—Tuesday, March 11, at 11:30 a.m.

We hope you will join
the Garden Club of Weaverville
for our March 2025 Meeting

If You Plant It, They Will Come!

Tuesday, March 11, at 11:30 a.m.

In the Weaverville Community Center
[60 Lakeshore Drive, Albert Weaver Room]

Are you interested in learning how to control non-native invasive plants in your yard, on your street, or on your homeowners’ association property?

If so, please join us at our upcoming meeting where Bob Gale, local invasives expert and ecologist, will discuss issues related to non-native invasive plants, methods of control, and ideas for moving your yard toward a more natural ecosystem. He will also describe landscape changes that you can expect to occur—regarding both native and non-native invasive plants—as a result of Tropical Storm Helene, and he’ll share ideas for restoration planting and erosion control.

In 2023, Bob retired as the ecologist and public lands director for the non-profit organization MountainTrue, where he worked for 25 years providing scientific input on issues related to environmental policy and protection and restoration of Southern Appalachian mountain forest communities. While with MountainTrue, he founded the organization’s non-native invasive species program, promoting invasive plant control methodologies and native plant replacement.

Following his time at MountainTrue, Bob formed RestoraFlora–Gale Botanical Consulting, a business focused on advising individual homeowners and HOAs on non-native invasive plant removal and wildlife friendly native plantings.

Bob received his bachelor’s degree in geology and biology at the University of South Carolina. His special interest is botany, and he has spent his life working in fields related to this subject. For over two decades, Bob served in many positions as an environmental activist with the Sierra Club in South Carolina, which helped prepare him for his career with MountainTrue. He also spent many years as a nature writer and photographer—contributing to regional and national magazines—and as a wetlands scientist for Ballantine Environmental Resources in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Bob has an additional interest and expertise in paleontology and, with his wife and son, co-authored the first field guide to Atlantic and Gulf coastal fossils.

All are welcome to attend. The garden club will not provide refreshments this month, but feel free to bring your own lunch, snack, or beverages to enjoy immediately following the program, if you’d like. The business meeting will begin soon thereafter.

Club of Weaverville is a co-ed, non-profit organization open to everyone. For more information on what we do, becoming a member, or supporting the club, visit our website.

Events, Meetings, Previous Events, Previous Meetings

In the Garden after Helene—Tuesday, February 11, at 11:30 a.m.

We hope you will join
the Garden Club of Weaverville
for our February 2025 Meeting

In the Garden after Helene

Tuesday, February 11, at 11:30 a.m.

In the Weaverville Community Center
[60 Lakeshore Drive, Albert Weaver Room]

Many gardens and landscapes were impacted by the heavy rains and strong winds created by Hurricane Helene in late September 2024. Today’s garden challenges include the fact that fallen trees have led to more sun in what were once shade gardens. Also, slopes and stream banks have eroded. But is this change a problem? Or is it an opportunity?

Join Alison Arnold, Buncombe County Agriculture Extension Agent, for an interactive question and answer session to talk about what happened in your garden as a result of Helene and to develop ideas for going forward. Attendees are invited to bring questions about and examples of the landscape challenges you are facing. 

And in response to several member inquiries, Alison will also give a brief overview of the Buncombe Master Gardener Volunteer program. 

At the Buncombe County Cooperative Extension Office, Alison is responsible for all consumer horticulture topics in Buncombe County, including the Buncombe Master Gardener Volunteer program.

*The following article on the Buncombe Master Gardener website is an excellent post-Helene resource: Flooding and Wind Damage: What’s Next for Your Landscape?

All are welcome to attend. The garden club will not provide refreshments this month, but feel free to bring your own lunch, snack, or beverages to enjoy immediately following the program, if you’d like. The business meeting will begin soon thereafter.

Club of Weaverville is a co-ed, non-profit organization open to everyone. For more information on what we do, becoming a member, or supporting the club, visit our website.

Events, Meetings, Previous Events, Previous Meetings

Environmentally Conscious Meadow Landscaping—Tuesday, January 14, at 11:30 a.m.

We hope you will join
the Garden Club of Weaverville
for our January 2025 Meeting

Program: Environmentally Conscious Meadow Landscaping

Tuesday, January 14, at 11:30 a.m.

In the Weaverville Community Center
[60 Lakeshore Drive, Albert Weaver Room]

 

NathanBuchanonEnvironmentallyConsciousMeadow

All of us have experienced the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene in personal ways.  Our gardens have also experienced damage and changes in their own unique ways.  From uprooted trees to damaged garden plants to the transition of shade gardens to sunny areas, we all need some encouragement and advice on how to move forward.  Our January meeting will feature Nathan Buchanan, the owner of Wildbud Natives, who will speak to our group about environmentally conscious landscaping practices. His focus will be on meadow-like native plantings in residential landscapes.

Wildbud Natives, a conservation nursery in Marshall that focuses on ecological restoration in human spaces, has emerged as a pioneer in native plant species and ecological landscaping, lawn replacements, meadow builds, and creek bank repair. Nathan, who began his career on a family Fraser fir farm in Mitchell County, North Carolina, now works with clients to craft meadow-themed plantings and landscapes that embody sustainability and environmental consciousness by bringing conservation practices and species into the residential garden. In addition to growing a wide array of native plants, providing landscape consultations, and managing installations, he is an active participant in educational workshops on native species throughout the region. Nathan holds a master’s degree in clinical counseling, but now focuses his work on the human-nature relationship outside the mind. 

All are welcome to attend. The garden club will not provide refreshments this month, but feel free to bring your own lunch, snack, or beverages to enjoy immediately following the program, if you’d like. The business meeting will begin soon thereafter.

NathanBuchanon

 Club of Weaverville is a co-ed, non-profit organization open to everyone. For more information on what we do, becoming a member, or supporting the club, visit our website.

Events, Meetings, Previous Events, Previous Meetings

All-Season Perennial Color—Tuesday, February 13, at 11:30 a.m.

We hope you will join
The Garden Club of Weaverville
for Our February 2024 Meeting

Program: How to be a Bird-Friendly Gardener 

Tuesday, February 13, at 11:30 a.m.

In the Weaverville Community Center Multipurpose Room 

60 Lakeshore Drive

Native Garden

Do you want a flower garden that delivers continuous blooms and color from spring through summer and into the fall? Gardens that offer color throughout the growing season simply require a little planning. But like most anything worthwhile, they offer tenfold back to you in their beauty and value to pollinators. Pat Sommers of Weaverville’s Natural Selections Nursery will walk us through what’s required to create, in our area, a native perennial garden with yearlong interest.

Pat studied horticulture/landscape design, including as an intern in plant breeding and plant evaluation, at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and she worked as an outdoor volunteer at the Asheville Botanical Gardens for nine years. For many years, her mother taught her about the native plants of New England while taking walks in the woods. Pat started growing natives from seed 16 years ago when she moved to our area. And since moving to Weaverville in 2015, she has been growing native plants. She has taught a number of classes on how to grow natives and their important place in various ecosystems, and she can be frequently found hunched over a plant on the side of a trail anyplace in the area.

PatSommers

The Garden Club of Weaverville is a co-ed, non-profit organization open to everyone. For more information on what we do, becoming a member, or supporting the club, visit our website.