Chapter Calendar

Learn about tools that can up your game in the garden – and some best practices on tool care and sharpening before the busy season. Bring those dull tools you have and get them sharpened by Any Edge Sharpening (for a fee) during the meeting. Your garden will thank you.

Clean Valley Council will present Roanoke Earth Day Celebration 2026 in historic Grandin Village, Roanoke, Va., on Saturday, April 18, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

This year’s Roanoke Earth Day Celebration theme is “Choose the Planet Over Plastic” to help raise awareness about our collective responsibility to be aware of just how much disposable plastic we use, to eliminate single-use plastics, and to understand the impacts on our environment, on human health, and of the rapidly spreading pollution from microplastics. The day empowers people and communities to take charge of protecting the planet.

Garden Club of Virginia is hosting another Historic Garden Week! 

See description below and event link for registration and to purchase tickets:

This walking tour features five distinguished properties in the North Broad Street Historic District. Built between 1867 and 1891, the homes showcase a rich blend of architectural styles popular in the Victorian era, including Italianate, Second Empire, and Queen Anne. Gardens vary from traditional to cottage to contemporary, offering visitors a delightful mix of design inspiration. Visitors are also invited to see Virginia’s Champion Dutch Elm as well as 76 other species of trees located on the neighboring Roanoke College campus. 

Learn propagation techniques from Ian Caton, owner of Wood Thrush Native Nursery and a local legend in the native plant world, located just down Hwy 221 in Floyd, VA. If you're not sure where you've heard of Ian before, check your Plant Virginia Natives SWVA guide - he has contributed to the first iteration of the guide and some of the great photos of native plants come from his observations.

Ian will be sharing what he knows about propagating native plants using cuttings, and we can't wait to learn how to multiply our native garden favorites for future seasons.

Read a little about Ian here, or check out Wood Thrush Natives's website.

https://www.lwladesign.com/people/ian-caton/

https://woodthrushnatives.com/

All members of Wild Ones are welcome to join us for the next Board Meeting.

Can you reliably identify some of our common native trees? It can be an overwhelming task with so many different sources - field guides, phone apps, Google images, your friends' opinions! Each method is different and has varying levels of reliability.  In Part I of a two-part program, Professor Heather Butler will teach us how to apply some basic steps and tips for identifying the trees that surround us. You'll never look at the trees on your walks in the same way you did before.

 Prof. Butler is  an Assistant Professor of Biology and Program Head of Science at the School of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, Virginia Western Community College. She teaches Dendrology, Biology, and other subjects, and is the committee chair of the Bee Campus Committee.

Part I is open to everyone. Part II will include a field walk for members only to practice these identification skills and techniques, location, date and time TBD. 

Wild Ones Roanoke Region is pleased to partner with the Roanoke Master Gardeners, the Blue Ridge Wildflower Society, and the Mill Mountain Garden Club in presenting the well known landscape architect Preston Montague. Mr. Montague has been featured in online programs, at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Winter Symposium, and most recently at the Piedmont Landscape Association Annual Seminar.

In “Bringing Ecology Home,” Mr.  Montague will share how native plant communities, such as the wilder landscapes of the Piedmont, can inspire residential gardens. Using a recently submitted Wild Ones landscape plan for Greensboro, North Carolina as a case study, he will highlight key decisions, challenges, and lessons learned in applying conservation gardening principles to the home garden. Attendees will gain practical insight into how to translate these ideas into their own landscapes to create spaces that reflect place and support biodiversity.

You can find the Wild Ones native plant landscape design created by Preston Montague for Greensboro, NC,  here. 

Preston Montague is a landscape architect and artist working to strengthen relationships between people and the natural world. His environmental design studio deploys art, horticulture, and landscape architecture in the service of building places that have meaning and ecological depth. In 2025 he served as inaugural artist-in-residence at Dix Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. When not in studio, Preston enjoys teaching landscape architecture at North Carolina A&T State University and hiking the wilder places. For more information on Preston, please visit www.prestonmontague.com 

Details coming soon! 

Details coming soon! 

Details coming soon!