Events Calendar

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

The closing event of this year’s Less Lawn More Life Challenge, will be led by Lisa Olsen, Chapter Liaison at Wild Ones. In this webinar, you’ll learn how small, personal actions like planting native species and removing invasives, can ripple outward to inspire neighbors, change policies, and reshape communities. 

During the premiere, native plant experts from Wild Ones and collaborating organizations will be active in the live chat. They’ll be ready to answer questions, share tips, and connect viewers with resources. The live chat will remain open for 30 minutes after the webinar, giving you plenty of time to ask questions and engage. Please note: You must be logged into a YouTube account to participate in the chat. 

The Less Lawn More Life Challenge is a free, 12-week action series designed to help people transform traditional lawns into vibrant, life-supporting native plant habitat. Each week, participants complete a simple challenge like planting a native shrub, removing invasives, or observing pollinators to reimagine their outdoor space and take meaningful steps toward restoring biodiversity at home. 

It’s not too late to get involved. Catch up on the weekly videos and start your rewilding journey today at https://www.lesslawnmorelife.com/ 

Join TN Valley Wild Ones members and hike leader, Zach Irick, for a unique wildflower and rare plant exploration at Rock Island State Park, in Rock Island, Tennessee. 

Rock Island State Park is within the Eastern Highland Rim, along the Caney Fork River, and contains one of the rarest of all ecosystems. This is the best remaining example of a limestone riverscour, and is just upstream of the beautiful Twin Falls.  It is a unique, botanically rich, glade-grassland feature that is only kept from returning to shrub and woodland by heavy riverscour during frequent flooding events historically. We will view unique plants in their natural habitat, several of which are rare or endemics. Recently, this area was the subject of botanical inventory which found many plant species of conservation interest, such as Pringle’s aster, maidenbush, white prairie clover, Cumberland leatherflower, shining bluestar, stiff-leaved goldenrod, Carolina willow, interior bushy St Johnswort, an undescribed dwarf species of big bluestem and many more. 

Date/Hike start time: Saturday, July 26, 2025 at 09:00 A.M. Eastern/08:00 Central time. Trailhead is in Central time zone.

Rating: moderate for a short elevation gain/loss at access trail and some wet and/or uneven rocky terrain.

Distance: 1-2 miles of explorations. Approximately 4 hours at the site.
 

Read more below for further details!   Registration opens about 4 weeks prior to event.

Spend an amazing day filled with all things nature and help support Forest Families of Chattanooga's mission to get kids of all ages outside! There'll be lots of nature-inspired activities and booths, a mud kitchen and water play area for the kids, handmade crafts and outdoor gear for sale, and vendors with nature-related items and services.

Join Wild Ones at the Forest Families Nature Festival and help inspire the next generation to love and protect nature! We're looking for passionate volunteers to staff our information table,  share knowledge about native plants and pollinators, and encourage kids to explore the wild world around them!
 

Volunteer Description: 

Set up tri-folds and literature, familiarize yourself with all we have to offer folks. Bring your favorite native plant/design/habitat book (put your name on it, just in case!)Make visitors feel welcome, encourage signups for newsletter and/or join Wild Ones, Share our mission using pamphlets, direct people to website, have available Pod Ambassador contact information when available.

Set-up Shift Duties: 

Set up tri-folds and literature, familiarize yourself with all we have to offer folks. Bring your favorite native plant/design/habitat book (put your name on it, just in case!)
Make visitors feel welcome, encourage signups for newsletter and/or join Wild Ones, share our mission using pamphlets, direct people to website, have available Pod Ambassador contact information when available.

Regular Shift Duties:

Familiarize yourself with all we have to offer folks. Bring your favorite native plant/design/habitat book (put your name on it, just in case!).
Make visitors feel welcome, encourage signups for newsletter and/or join Wild Ones, share our mission using pamphlets, direct people to website, have available Pod Ambassador contact information when available.

Medicinal Native Plants in the Tennessee Valley Region

The botanically-rich region of the Tennessee Valley makes it a full pharmacy when it
comes to the medicinal qualities of its native plants. In this course, participants will get
to know over 20 native plants found at Reflection Riding: how to identify them, where
they grow, what their medicinal properties are, how and when to harvest them and how
to make them into medicine. We will match plants with people through a health
assessment, so participants can see what plants might be important to include in their
own garden to help themselves, their friends and family. Ethically-sound and
sustainable sourcing and wildcrafting practices will be stressed.

Stewardship of native plants and habitat seem to be at its highest support from the general public and the ecologically minded alike in recent memory. From hearings in Congress to TikTok infuencer pages, the message of “going native" is resonating and people are getting their hands dirty, but is it enough? The environmental and economic costs of the nursery industry, whether native or not, cannot be ignored - we must have a diverse approach in how we build native habitat. Mostly overlooked, and seldom fully appreciated as it trails behind the spectacle of the growing season, seeds of the native plants can hold significant value to how we access native flora and share its wonder with others. From curbing the carbon footprint tagged to every plug planted, to the banking of genetic lineages and adaptation of historic regional native landscapes, seeds offer us common sense strategies for making ecologically important landscapes -not just beautiful ones. Explore the nuances of native seed collections, its ethics and the process from shoot to seed and learn what it takes to do home-grown conservation.

Dylan Hackett is the founder and owner of The Rewilding Collective, a conservation oriented land management and consulting business, dedicated to ecological stewardship and progressive native habitat management of the regional southeast. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Dylan moved to Chattanooga in 2012 to attend the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, but now calls Chattanooga and Southern Appalachia his home. With an affinity for the systems and plant ecology of the Southeastern U.S., Dylan has explored conservation through his work doing native plant propagation and the building of robust native habitat. In 2022, The Rewilding Collective concept was developed and founded in response to the lack of progressive ecological restoration being practiced and served to the greater Chattanooga area. Since then, Dylan and his team at TRC have worked to restore private and public lands in the Southeast, introducing tens of thousands of native plants into the landscape, removing acres of invasive species, and constantly developing great collaborative working partnerships with ecological leaders from the southeast. Currently, Dylan’s work has found him in part, doing native seed collection and banking of important, but often overlooked grassland species of the southeast. He
believes that work such as this ensures the continuation of a rich ecological history of a region vitally important to the whole of Earth’s biodiversity, and that through collective effort and education, we can pass along the most meaningful parts of the human enterprise to future stewards.

August's Book Discussion is on Nature’s Best Hope by Doug Tallamy in preparation for his free lecture this fall. 

Discover how hope takes root in our own backyards. In Nature’s Best Hope, renowned ecologist and entomologist Dr. Doug Tallamy offers an empowering call to action—urging each of us to become conservationists right at home. Through engaging stories and practical guidance, Tallamy shows how planting native species and rethinking our landscapes can create vital wildlife corridors, restore biodiversity, and heal the planet—one yard at a time.

This heartfelt discussion invites readers of all backgrounds to explore how small, personal choices can add up to a powerful collective impact. Come be part of a passionate community ready to turn awareness into action and transform ordinary spaces into extraordinary habitats. Together, WE are nature’s best hope. 

Have a shady spot in your yard and not sure what to do with it? Discover the art of native plant landscaping and learn how to match the right plant to the right place. Shade gardening is more than just selecting plants that tolerate low light—it’s about understanding the unique conditions your space offers. She will also show how mosses can be combined with wildflowers to form a natural green ground cover. Join local expert Charlotte Freeman as she shares practical tips and her extensive experience with shade gardening in North Chattanooga.

Charlotte Freeman has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Emory University and a Master’s degree in Zoology with a minor in Ecology from University of Florida.  She taught biology at the university level and secondary school level for 38 years.  She received the National Association of Biology Teachers Award for Outstanding Biology Teacher in the State of Tennessee in 1986.  She received the Distinguished Teacher Award at Girls Preparatory School in 1989.  Charlotte became an advocate for native plants about 40 years ago and has received her Certificate in Native plants from the Tennessee Valley Chapter of The Wild Ones and is a teacher of plant communities, and liverworts, mosses and ferns for the CNP classes.  Her passion is converting her yard to native plants and propagating them as space allows.  She has been instrumental in starting several other native wildflower gardens in the Chattanooga area.

If you have taken our Plant Communities core class, you touched on how geology and geography affect native plant communities. This elective class will focus in on these factors. 
Geobotany is the study of how plants, their variations, and their distribution are influenced by geological factors like rock type, soil composition, and topography. Geology, in turn, provides the substrate and environmental conditions that plants inhabit, impacting their growth, survival, and distribution.

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.

Join botanist/ecologist Gary Kauffman for a hands-on native grasses workshop
highlighting grass identification and grassland communities. We’ll learn to use a
Southern Appalachian grasses key derived from Weakley’s Flora of the
Southeastern U.S. and other identification tools, look at samples of common
native grasses, and learn a bit about grassland communities and the wildlife they
support. You should come away from the workshop to be more comfortable using
the key to Poaceae (grasses) groups and genera, recognize a dozen common
grasses by sight, and have ample resources to hone your grass skills.

Join Master Gardeners of Hamilton County in celebrating Fall! The MGHC Fall Garden Festival will feature a variety of plants for sale, nature-inspired art, demos and exhibits, and fun & educational children's activities. There will also be a food truck and homemade baked goods for sale. 

You don’t need to be a native plant expert to help at a Wild Ones table! Just bring a friendly attitude, be a good listener, and use our cheat sheets to help guide conversations. It’s a fun way to sprout new connections, support a mission that pollinates change, and grow your confidence. Come dig in - we’d love to have you!

Volunteer Role Description: 

If you'd like, bring your favorite native plant or themed book to brighten up the display

Help with setup/takedown if you're signed up for those shifts

Familiarize yourself with booth display items

Greet visitors and share info about Wild Ones

Keep booth area and displays tidy

Distribute materials: brochures, membership info, native plant guides

Encourage newsletter signups and memberships

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 seed & plant swap.  Please bring a dish and plants to share. This is a great time to visit with other native plant enthusiasts!

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. 

Details coming soon! 

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!