Events Calendar

Board members meet to discuss our chapter's progress and make decisions when necessary.

Participants of this course will experience drawing from observation with guidance. All are welcome no matter how much time one has spent drawing. The subjects for our drawing exercises will be items found from our woods and native landscapes. Participants are encouraged to bring items from their yards that interest them. During our time together, we will discuss materials, review examples, practice visual inspection techniques, and then work through warm up style techniques to drawing from a still life.

With winter tree ID, you end up paying more attention to the tree itself. Bark, twig, bud, fruit, form, and the site are all important. Leaves are distractions!

Join us for a presentation by Rhett Bentley, who leads the parks & trails framework committee for the City of Lookout Mountain, Georgia.
 

Rhett Bentley will talk about the Thriving Gardens program. The Thriving Gardens plant guide is a collaborative initiative between Thrive Regional Partnership and Homegrown National Park to support residents, businesses, and communities as they restore vibrant native landscapes across northeast Alabama, northwest Georgia, and southeast Tennessee. 

Gabe LePage from the Food Forest Coalition of Chattanooga will discuss edible native plants and how to use them to make a more abundant landscape. 

Here is what Gabe says about his program:

We can cultivate the land towards mercy and delight. In this presentation, we will meet some of the plant characters native to this area that have long sustained human life, and consider how they can help us create a more abundant landscape in our neighborhoods and in Chattanooga. We will discuss the idea of food forests and how food forests can heal the land, feed us, and build up the social fabric of our communities. By growing edible native plants, we can take care of the land as it cares for us, and encourage a social economy with enough to go around. 

Gabe is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and Yale School of the Environment, holding a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Environmental Management. His undergraduate degrees were in International Development Studies and Geography at Calvin College. He has experience in urban forestry programs, urban agriculture and community gardening, and Asset Based Community Development. Trained in systems thinking and participatory organizing techniques, he believes strongly in the ways that community-led greenspaces and gardens build the social fabric of our neighborhoods, reduce isolation, and build trust for addressing larger systemic issues.

We invite everyone who has helped us make the TN Valley chapter of Wild Ones a success by volunteering their time, money and/or expertise. Please come and enjoy each other's company! We'll have a light lunch. 

More event details coming soon!

Join us for a hike to Big Possum Creek bluffs to see peak blooms of thousands of blooming trout lily (Erythronium americanum), shooting stars (Primula meadia) and Carey's saxifrage (Micranthes careyana), plus several other early wildflowers.  

It is an easy trail, but moderate difficulty with two significant elevation changes when coupled with almost 3.5 miles of trail.

Spring Plant Sale.

Join us for this free event.  A variety of local and regional native plant nurseries will be selling a large selection of plants.

More info coming soon.

Certificate in Native Plants Class focusing on Spring Ephemeral wildflowers and the plant communities in which they grow.

Join us for a presentation by Nathaniel Bankhead for a presentation about permaculture and invasive species management.

This talk is an invitation to a more thoughtful and energy-conscious approach to invasive plant remediation and native plant restoration, because harvesting is more skillful than killing.  Nathaniel will utilize examples of Wild Violet and others' work in removing invasive plants via grazing, medicine making, composting and more while reintroducing native edible and medicinal species. 

Born and raised in Tennessee, Nathaniel has spent time as a farmer, teacher and learner in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Kansas and Kentucky.  Attracted to permaculture out of a desire to draw on the best of both agroecology and community development, he is owner and operator of Wild Violet Permaculture.  He specializes in land restoration with a focus on reforestation, grazing, and medicinal herbs.  His clientele include nonprofit organizations, the City of Chattanooga, and private landowners across southern Appalachia.  Check out the website for educational opportunities, including a locals only permaculture design course. 
 

Arabia Mountain.  Stay tuned for details!

Board members meet to discuss our chapter's progress and make decisions when necessary.

Landscapes in Progress events were designed as a way for our members to learn more about native plant gardening from the experiences of other members. Like all of our gardens, these gardens are "in progress." They do not have to be perfect, although there are always some really amazing and beautiful things to see! We have found that these garden visits are a great way to learn about a variety of native plants and the conditions in which they thrive. 

Join members of the Tennessee Valley Chapter of Wild Ones for a tour of two of our members' gardens. Both gardens are in the Signal Mtn, TN area. Stay tuned for more details!

Overview:  Plant Communities is a biology/ecology-based core course required for the Certificate in Native Plants.  It will be an in-person course scheduled for six hours of instruction and self-study.  The course will be a combination of outdoor observations and PowerPoint presentations. Students will go home with instructions to adopt a plant community of his/her choosing and using guiding questions, prepare a report to be returned to the instructors

The program will be a panel of participants describing their experiences in installing school native plant gardens. See Angela Dittmar to participate.

Join us on a hike led by Dennis Horn to AEDC and May Prairie.

Stay tuned for details!

Board members meet to discuss our chapter's progress and make decisions when necessary.

Details coming soon! 

Fall Plant Sale.

Fall is the perfect time for planting.  Join us for this free event.  A variety of local and regional native plant nurseries will be selling a large selection of plants.

Details coming soon! 

Board members meet to discuss our chapter's progress and make decisions when necessary.

All Tennessee Valley Wild Ones members and guests are welcome to attend.  We will have a potluck lunch, election of officers, highlights of 2025, and a plant swap.  Please bring a dish and plants to share. This is a great time to visit with other native plant enthusiasts!

Details coming soon!