Events Archive: 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Upcoming Events
February 2025
National Panel Discussion: "Bees Beyond Honey: Understanding Native and Managed Pollinators"
Hosted by Wild Ones NationalOnline/Virtual
Public Welcome Will be Recorded Free Event Program/Speaker Presentation
All are welcome to join this free virtual panel discussion exploring the vital roles of native, solitary, and honeybees in pollination and biodiversity. Featuring experts Sam Droege (USGS), Dave Hunter (Crown Bees), and Dr. Lora Morandin (Pollinator Partnership), this event will discuss into the challenges pollinators face, the balance between managed and wild bees, and actionable ways to support all pollinators.
Gain insights from over 90 years of combined experience and learn how to advocate for pollinator habitats through planting native species, participating in community science, and adopting responsible management practices.
Belmont Library Series 2 of 3--When and How to Plant Native Seeds
Public Welcome Family Friendly Free Event Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking
Join us for the second in our series, at which we'll talk about when and how to plant native seeds. We provided seeds at our first program on January 25, but we'll try to bring some extra in case you missed it.
Our final program is April 26!
March 2025
How to Understand and Build Soil Health
Public Welcome Free Event Chapter Meeting Program/Speaker Presentation Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking Drinking Fountains
Meredith Hoggatt, Associate Extension Agent, on behalf of 4 the Soil, will talk about building soil health.
All of us have direct and indirect efforts on the soil. Whether when we maintain acres of farmland, an urban garden, or a lawn, or when we purchase produce and meat at the store, we all influence soil health.
While soils are complex, taking care of it can be simple. Come learn about the four core principles of soil health:
(1) Keep soil covered; (2) Minimize disturbance; (3) Maximize living roots; (4) Energize with diversity.
Each principle builds on each other. We can start with one and implement each as we grow in ways that fits our lifestyle and landscape.
April 2025
Forgotten Grasslands of the Southeast
Public Welcome Free Event Chapter Meeting Program/Speaker Presentation Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking Drinking Fountains
Grassland loss is the single greatest conservation issue currently facing eastern North American biodiversity. Our precious Southeastern grasslands are nearly extinct and the species that depend on them are fading fast. Many of our Southeastern grasslands that managed to persist through the past 200 years have disappeared in the past quarter-century. Cities such as Charlotte, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Montgomery, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham, Richmond, and Tallahassee, among others, are as much "grassland cities" as Austin, Fort Worth, and Tulsa.
Alaina Krakowiak of the Southeastern Grassland Institute will discuss the importance of Southeastern Grasslands to our ecosystems, what's being done to preserve them, and how you can help.
More information about SGI can be found at https://www.segrasslands.org/
Find a PBS documentary about this effort here:
Belmont Library Series 3 of 3-- How to Transplant and Care for the New Plants Started this Year
Public Welcome Family Friendly Free Event Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking
In this final program, we'll talk about how to care for and/or transplant your new seedlings from the prior programs. Feel free to bring what you have growing to add to the discussion.
May 2025
How to Photograph Your Garden
Public Welcome Free Event Chapter Meeting Program/Speaker Presentation Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking Drinking Fountains
Does your camera see what you see when you look at your beautiful garden? Chances are you are disappointed in the images you capture.
Stephanie Klein-Davis, fine art photographer and teacher, will discuss and demonstrate how to look at your garden through your camera's eye. She will talk about our most common camera – our phone – and how to achieve the best photographs you can.
Klein-Davis is an award winning, career photojournalist. Her professional experience includes years of working for newspapers, magazines, books, and international publications. She taught college photography at Hollins University and Virginia Western Community College, and now teaches full-time in the Fine Arts Department at William Fleming High School in Roanoke, Virginia.
For more about Klein-Davis, see her website at https://www.klein-davis.photography/
June 2025
A Primer on How to Identify Native Trees
Public Welcome Free Event Chapter Meeting Program/Speaker Presentation Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking Drinking Fountains
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.
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.
September 2025
The Forest Botanicals Region Living Monument: Transforming Perceptions of the Appalachian ‘Coalfields.'
Public Welcome Free Event Chapter Meeting Program/Speaker Presentation Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking Drinking Fountains
Dr. Shannon Bell, Professor of Sociology, Virginia Tech, is the project director of The Forest Botanicals Region Living Monument, which celebrates the historical and present-day traditions and relationships that many different Appalachian peoples have long held with the bountiful medicinal herbs and forest foods that can be found growing wild throughout the Appalachian woodland understory.
She will talk about why the monument was created, and the histories of Appalachian peoples' longstanding relationships with our woodland medicinal plants and forest foods.
More information about the Living Monument and an online exhibit can be found here: https://forestbotanicalsregion.vt.domains/exhibits/show/online-exhibit
Dr. Bell is an environmental sociologist and Appalachian Studies scholar whose current research projects focus on forest-based traditions and lifeways in Central Appalachia.
September Wild Ones National Webinar
Hosted by Wild Ones NationalOnline/Virtual
Public Welcome Will be Recorded Free Event Program/Speaker Presentation
Details coming soon!
October 2025
October Wild Ones National Webinar
Hosted by Wild Ones NationalOnline/Virtual
Public Welcome Will be Recorded Free Event Program/Speaker Presentation
Details coming soon!
November 2025
What's Living in Your Soil? and Annual Meeting
Public Welcome Chapter Meeting Program/Speaker Presentation Wheelchair Accessible Public Restroom Free Public Parking
Get up close and personal with soil microorganisms! Following up on our February presentation on healthy soil, Ruth Reyer will give us a live microscope presentation scanning through a different soil samples from field and forest. She'll discuss the soil food web and the reciprocal relationship between it, the plants, and ourselves.
Ruth raises honey bees, coturnix quail, microgreens, native nursery plants, vermiculture, herbs, and vegetables. She sells at local markets and through a seasonal CSA.
We'll also have an overview of our year, hold elections, and discuss the coming year.
November Wild Ones National Webinar
Hosted by Wild Ones NationalOnline/Virtual
Public Welcome Will be Recorded Free Event Program/Speaker Presentation
Details coming soon!