Events Calendar

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 seed & plant swap. 

Potluck

Please bring a dish to share. If you need inspiration, think brunch or lunch favorites: casseroles, quiches, breakfast bakes, sandwiches, pastries, fruit, salads, desserts.We’ll provide beverages and tableware.So we're better able to plan, please sign up at the link below if you plan to participate in the potluck. You don't have to know exactly what dish, but knowing that you're bringing something is helpful. 

Seed/Plant Swap

Please label your items with scientific name, common name, where & when collected, and any interesting/fun details. We will have extra containers, clean seed packets, sharpies, and labels. If you have spare gardening gear (pruners, containers, knee rests, etc) in decent condition to pass along, bring that too

This is a great time to visit with other native plant enthusiasts!

Board Elections

Please meet our three 2026 Board Member Candidates that the nominating committee feels would be a good fit for our three open positions. Please be prepared to cast your vote during our annual meeting. 

Brenda Vehige
Jonathon Nicholson
Pam Sohn

Pam Sohn’s bio:

When Pam Sohn retired in January 2023 from newspaper work (30 years of it in Chattanooga), she wrote: “After a 48-year addiction to news and the written word, I’m retiring and heading into garden therapy to work on becoming a recovering journalist.”
Throughout 2024 and 2025, she has been the Certificate in Native Plants program manager for the Tennessee Valley Wild Ones.
Her love of gardening and nature began as this Walden’s Ridge native grew up on an apple orchard on the backside of Signal Mountain — especially as she prowled the ravines and stream edges of the Fairmount community.
But she only began to truly understand the “how” and “why” of gardening after she took a Hamilton County Master Gardener course and, through it, discovered the up-and-coming Wild Ones group here.
In Wild Ones’ CNP classes, things came together for this long-time environmental reporter/editor, nature lover and gardening novice.
Sohn still lives on that mountain orchard/meadow/ravine place, and she’s loving every moment of learning to garden there. 
Occasionally, her addiction to news still creates a ripple, and she has a passion for green advocacy in community gardening, native plant gardening and projects like “The Field” in Red Bank.
Just ask her.
She has been married for 48 years to photographer, Louis Sohn. They have a grown son, Mitch, as well as two dogs and a grand cat. When not gardening, Pam still sometimes writes, tries to paint, researches family roots and plays the piano.

Brenda Vehige's bio:

Brenda Vehige lives in Brainerd, near Missionary Ridge, in Chattanooga.  She moved here from Nashville in 2019 with her husband to be closer to nature and the mountains.  After finding their mid-century modern dream home, it was time to do some landscaping in their small yard.  Knowing nothing about plants, she reached out to multiple landscapers with no avail.  As an artist and Interior Designer, she knew what she wanted to see outside of her windows and decided to spend her time researching landscape design and plants that thrived in the South East during the shut down.  While researching, she became aware of Doug Tallamy’s work and everything changed.  During the Covid years she became more interested in birds, and native plants became the goal in order to attract more wildlife to her yard.  For the past three years she has been adding native plants to the yard and stopped mowing sections in order to heal the soil and form a micro-prairie.  During these years, she has watched nature thrive in her yard, attracting caterpillars, moths, butterflies, and a wide array of birds including a family of owls.  She is finding that nature is slow, but with patience and knowledge of our Tennessee natives she can support the ecosystem in her own small way.

Jonathan Nicholson bio:

My name is Jonathan Nicholson. I'm a CGI artist and run my own business, Nicholson Visualization.
About 3 years ago, my wife and I moved from Florida and purchased a home in Red Bank on .6 acres. We very quickly realized that much of the wooded area near our home was covered in kudzu. At the time I did not know too much about native and non-native plants, but I knew kudzu could harm trees, so we wanted to have it removed. During our talks about removing, the topic of other invasive plants on the property came up, and that lead to the topic of removing the invasives and replacing them with natives. 
That was the initial spark that triggered months of research about native plants and the important role they play. Since then, we have removed countless invasive plants from our property and have been working tirelessly to plant natives in their place. So far we have planted over 1,000 native herbaceous and woody plants on our property.
For me, native plants is not only my creative outlet, but my way of giving back to nature. My work has me inside tied to a desk most days, and native plants has had been my way of connecting with the natural world. I have recently began to grow my own native plants from seed, and my goal is to grow enough to share with neighbors and others in my community to help promote the use of natives in landscaping settings.

This class will focus on how soil and water interactions lay the foundation for supporting a functional, healthy landscape. We will frame our conversation around the five soil forming factors of parent material, climate, biota, topography, and time, and take a look at how each of these is at work in our landscape. We will use technology tools but also simply get our hands dirty to help uncover information that will help in management decisions. 

Join us to learn the art and science of pruning. Topics will include an overview of plant anatomy and physiology, different pruning cuts and plant response to the cuts, and differing approaches for different plants.

About Matt Whitaker

Matt is the founding principal of WMWA Landscape Architects. After working twelve
years at award winning firms in Virginia and Washington, DC, Matt returned home to
start his own firm.

When Matt was 17, his high school art teacher took notice of his interests in art and
nature and suggested that he study landscape architecture. Landscape architecture is
his third profession after working as a butcher during undergrad and managing the
production of cutting-edge drug delivery polymers shortly after he graduated. His
bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from the University of Alabama in Huntsville
centered on the macro and micro characteristics of plant ecology. Building on his
interests, Matt applied his love for ecology and plant communities to a rigorous design
curriculum while earning his Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of
Georgia’s School of Environmental Design. As a lifelong student, his passion for
ecology and natural systems heavily influences his work as a landscape architect.
Matt loves the outdoors, good food, and is fascinated by plants. Matt’s friend Tom
Burford, a world-renowned apple and fruit expert, told Matt to go to Chattanooga and
start a firm. When Tom Burford tells you to do something, you do it.

Discover the power of ecological garden design in this free national webinar, Living in the Liberated Landscape: My Yard, with award-winning landscape designer Larry Weaner. Join us for a personal look at how dynamic, self-sustaining landscapes can emerge when we partner with nature instead of controlling it. Drawing on more than 35 years of experience, Larry will share practical strategies for designing dynamic gardens that evolve naturally, support biodiversity, and bring lasting beauty to your yard.

Our Holiday Social is the perfect time to visit with your native plant friends and celebrate a successful TVWO year.  Members are welcome to bring a guest. Please bring an appetizer or dessert to share. More to come!

Designing with native plants isn’t just about what you grow, it’s about how you shape your space. In this hands-on workshop, Zoe Evans (Plan it Wild) and Heather Evans (Design Your Wild) guide you through the process of creating a cohesive yard plan that supports both your lifestyle and biodiversity.

The goals of the class are to explain qualities that plants share with other living things, as well as characteristics that set them apart, and to become acquainted with the range of different organisms that make up the plant kingdom.

Be on the lookout: Once you have registered, we will email you with pre-course work and any other materials needed for this class.

Materials to bring! Notebook, pencils, snacks, water, and a lunch. This class will be both in and out of doors, please wear weather-appropriate clothing and footwear.

Registration Policy: 

As with all CNP classes, class size is limited. To give everyone the best opportunity to participate, there is a non-refundable cancellation fee of $10, with the balance refunded if you cancel at least 7 calendar days before the class will be held. If the class is cancelled by the instructor or the CNP program, registrants will get a full refund.

Details coming soon! 

Details coming soon! This will be a paid webinar with all proceeds supporting the Seeds for Education Program. 

STAY TUNED FOR EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION

About this class: The goals of the class are to discuss plant cell and tissue types and major vegetative structures, explore reproduction, and sample some of the strategies and structures that plants use to continue life from generation to generation. 

Be on the lookout: Once you have registered, we will email you with pre-course work and any other materials needed for this class.

Materials to bring! Notebook, pencils, a 10X Magnifier, snacks, water, and a lunch. This class will be both in and out of doors, please wear weather-appropriate clothing and footwear.

Registration Policy: 

As with all CNP classes, class size is limited. To give everyone the best opportunity to participate, there is a non-refundable cancellation fee of $10, with the balance refunded if you cancel at least 7 calendar days before the class will be held. If the class is cancelled by the instructor or the CNP program, registrants will get a full refund.

Details coming soon! 

Details coming soon! 

Details coming soon! 

Details coming soon!