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Thank you! Landfill Pollinator Garden workday April 2, 2022

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— by Marily Perz

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Kathy, Marilyn, Kathy, Ilse, Dick. Photo by Walt Henderson.

Thank you to the NPSOT members who came to the workday at the Pollinator Garden. We were a “small but mighty” group.

Kathy Galloway got all of the Pavonia and some lantana trimmed back. Dick Galloway was a generalist and dug holes, shoveled mulch, and carried trimmings. Walt Henderson used his cotton chopping hoe to clear a new bed for the zexmenia and black-foot daisies that we got from the NPSOT plant sale. Kathy Henderson and Kathy Galloway then planted them in Walt’s new bed. Ilse Meier worked on weeding and other garden clean up.

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Walt and Kathy. Photo by Marilyn Perz.

The weather was beautiful. The scenery and company were the BEST!

Our co-founders and collaborators from The Good Water Master Naturalists did not join us. They need to find a replacement for their Pollinator Garden Coordinator since Elizabeth Sartain has retired after many years of doing a great job in that position. Thank you, Elizabeth!

Please come by to see the bluebonnet-covered berm (please don’t walk in the beauties) and visit the refreshed garden.

(The Williamson County Pollinator Garden is at the entrance to the Williamson County Landfill, at the corner of FM 1660 and Landfill Road, in Hutto, TX.)

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Reminder: NPSOT-Wilco’s March 2022 Survey closes on April 5

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You have until end of day on Tuesday, April 5, to take our 2022 chapter survey. Whether or not you are a chapter member, a NPSOT member, or a non-member native plant enthusiast, we’d like your input to our 7-question chapter survey. Your responses will help line up interesting speakers and plan field trips in the coming year.

  • The survey does NOT collect any identifying information unless you choose to supply your email address in the very last question.
  • To take the survey, click on  NPSOT-Wilco Survey March 2022.   Be sure to hit the Submit button at the bottom of the form to record your responses.
  • The survey closes on April 5, 2022.   Survey results will be presented in a future chapter meeting.

If you have questions about the survey, please contact us at wilco-chapter@npsot.org.

Beth Erwin
NPSOT-Williamson County Chapter President

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Perfect weather, perfect day! THANK YOU!

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— by Beth Erwin

NPSOT-Williamson County’s Native Plant Sale on Saturday, March 26th, turned out perfectly in so many ways. The weather was sunny and mild, our plant vendors showed up with tons of gorgeous native plants, and the volunteers were cheerful and hard-working. Then the customers showed up, and boy, did they show up!

Video by Phillip Pensabene.

Early bird shoppers came with the published plant list in hand. We had lots of wonderful native plants for everything from pollinators to songbirds to humans. We had trees, shrubs, flowering perennials and annuals, milkweeds, vines, grasses, sedges, and groundcovers. We had a great variety, and everyone enjoyed finding what they wanted.

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Photo by Andy Goerdel.

Our volunteers helped customers choose a plant, find a specific plant, and told them more about their plant. They answered landscaping questions, carried plants, held customers’ plants while they went back for more and more plants. Boxes full of plants were ticketed, taken to a cashier’s table, and loaded into vehicles.

It was exciting! It went so smoothly, in large part to the pre-sale planning, prep work, training and practice our team leaders and volunteer workers did. Once sale day dawned, more terrific volunteers poured in. We were thrilled to have the Round Rock High School Plant Club members return to run our plant holding area. We were doubly lucky to have a group of enthusiastic students from Southwestern University’s Alpha Phi Omega chapter and instructors assisting this time. Our chapter volunteers really enjoyed interacting with the students, and best of all, several students from both groups expressed a desire to do it again.

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Photo by Cindy Chrisler.

We appreciate all the pots customers donated for our vendors to reuse to grow more beneficial native plants.

Our plant sale proceeds help fund our various nonprofit programs promoting the use of Texas native plants. Our primary focus is Williamson County, where we utilize the plant sale profits on community-enriching native plant-related projects.

Thank you to everyone for your kind-hearted support.
Beth Erwin and Randy Pensabene

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Photo by Phillip Pensabene. Click to get the full effect!

Check out more plant sale photos in our Google Drive Photo Album.

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