The video recording of January 9, 2025’s chapter meeting featuring “Creating a Native Seed Library in your Community” with Craig Bruska is now available on our YouTube channel. The presentation begins after a short business meeting.
See more recorded topics on our YouTube channel. Like and Subscribe!
Business slides for recent chapter meetings are here, listed by date. (If this particular meeting’s business slides were not added yet, they will be soon. Please check back later.)
NPSOT-Williamson County meetings are free and open to the public. We hope you attend! Meetings may be in person, virtual, or both, so be sure to check details in the meeting announcement. Meetings are announced on our website, our calendar and Facebook.
Due to the weather forecast, the field trip to Godwin Ranch Preserve – which was originally planned for February 22 – is rescheduled to Saturday, March 1, 2025. All the other information remains the same — time of day, where to park, no water, no facilities.
What: Plant survey and tour of the Godwin Ranch Preserve
When:1:00 PM to 3:00 PM, Saturday, March 1, 2025February 22, 2025
Where: Near the corner of DB Wood Road and Williams Drive in Georgetown.
Members and non-members are welcome! No RSVP is required.
Join NPSOT members on the first of four scheduled plant surveys at the Godwin Ranch Preserve in Georgetown. This 100 acre preserve is a mitigation for the construction of Lakeline Mall in Austin and will not be developed.
Park at the CVS Pharmacy and walk east along Williams Drive to the gated entrance (a quarter mile or less). There will be a NPSOT sign at the gate. If walking that distance is a problem, you may be dropped off at the gate but there is no parking along Williams Drive or in the preserve.
There are no restrooms or water, so please plan accordingly. Bring your own water and snacks.
Depending on the number of people who show up, we will take a walk around a mostly flat mowed path for about a mile and a half. There are some rocks and stumps that may pose a trip hazard, and walking sticks are recommended. If time allows we may break up into groups to survey different habitats within the preserve.
You may put observations on iNaturalist but please obscure any rare plants. In addition to plants, you will see several species of birds.
If you have questions, please contact the Field Trip Committee (contact form here).
————– See photos from some of our previous field trips in our Field Trip Album.
Join NPSOT-Williamson County on Thursday, February 13, 2025, when our featured topic will be “The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession” with NYT best-selling author Amy Stewart.Free and open to the public. The meeting begins at 7:00 PM. The guest presentation begins after a short business meeting.
Please note:
Our guest speaker will be joining via Zoom.
This month’s presentation will NOT be recorded for YouTube*.
==> This month’s in-person location is the Georgetown Public Library, 2nd floor, 402 West 8th St, Georgetown, TX 78626. Come early (6:30 PM) for expert advice, to check out the seed swap board, or just to visit.
About our topic: When Amy Stewart discovered a community of tree collectors, she expected to meet horticultural fanatics driven to plant every species of oak or maple. But she also discovered that the urge to collect trees springs from something deeper and more profound: a longing for community, a vision for the future, or a path to healing and reconciliation.
In this 45-minute talk, Amy introduces audiences to several of the remarkable people she met from around the world whose lives were transformed by their relationships to trees. Accompanied by her own hand-drawn illustrations of people and their trees, this talk inspires audiences to reconsider their own connections to trees – and maybe start a collection!
About our speaker: Amy Stewart is the New York Times best-selling author of fourteen books, including The Tree Collectors, The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Plants, and several other popular nonfiction titles about the natural world. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Photo credit Scott Brown
At every meeting, we give away a book — about native plants or the meeting topic — to one randomly chosen in-person attendee!
* If we have permission from our guest speaker, we record the presentation for our YouTube channel. (See a list of past topics at this link.)
Have an idea for a speaker? Let Program Leader Susie Hickman know via email to wilco-chapter@npsot.org.
NPSOT-Williamson County meetings are free and open to the public. We hope you attend! Meetings may be in person, virtual, or both, so be sure to check details in the meeting announcement. Meetings are announced on our website, our calendar and Facebook. See upcoming topics on our page Wilco Home or on our Calendar.
