Category: Volunteers

Chapter Volunteer Activity

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Full of Fun – Family Nature Fest, Garey Park on April 9, 2022

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— by Vicky H.

On April 9, 2022, the Williamson County Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT) hosted a booth during the annual Family Nature Fest held at Garey Park in Georgetown, Texas. This annual event, originally to celebrate Earth Day, took a hiatus during the pandemic but came back with renewed excitement on a sunny and windy Saturday.

image of children at info booth
Future NPSOT members?

Geared towards the kids in attendance, our blue tent was set up in a mowed field near the Play Ranch and Equestrian Center. This new location opened with a nature poetry walk and continued around a semicircle with booths sporting ways to get closer to nature, including native plants, master naturalists, outdoor enthusiasts, Balcones Canyonlands, and the quintessential pony rides, tortoises, owls, opossums and a menagerie of snakes!

volunteers at info booth
Susie and Vicky

Our fearless volunteers (thank you, Susie Hickman, Marcia Wutke, Vicky Husband and Beth Erwin) alternated handing out starts of Cowpen Daisy-Golden Crownbeard (Verbesina encelioides) with chasing flying sheets of stickers, brochures and plant lists. The 250 plant starts were introduced to the kids as a great monarch butterfly nectar source, and billed as a tough and showy plant for planting directly into the yard. The parents loved the grab-and-go aspect of the plant starts, and many showed serious interest in expanding their knowledge of native plants for use in their home landscapes. Grown by Wright’s Nursery in Briggs, Texas, all starts were handed out by the end of the event!

Take-aways from this educational event include a definite “yes” for attending future Family Nature Fests due to the success of the outreach: the volume of families in attendance, the excitement of new homeowners and young gardeners at the formative point of their learning, while keeping in mind the elementary school age of the kids and their dual interest in attracting pollinators and growing flowering native plants.

Thank you to everyone who helped to make our booth a success – a great event for our chapter!

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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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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.

image of plants for sale
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.

image of plant sale
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

plant sale panorama
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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