[kittygilchrist]

The first meeting of the Villages Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society is today:

Date: Friday, January 30, 2015
Time: 1:30 pm to 3:20 pm
Location: Big Cypress Rec Center – Periwinkle Room

Guest Speaker: Karina Veaudry – FNPS Executive Director and principle of FNC

Karina Veaudry has 26 years of experience as a Landscape Architect and is licensed in five states. Her resume includes park planning and design, municipal, commercial, greenways and trails, landscape ecology and federal projects. Karina is a public speaker on the topics of conservation planning, low impact/sustainable design, vegetated roof design, cistern systems, and the ecological benefits of native plants. All projects focus on a sense of place and she educates government staff, homeowner associations and businesses on the importance on-site preservation, water conservation and the importance of native plants to increase biodiversity and reduce extinction rates.

Karina will provide us with a history of the society and background on its mission, projects and activities. We will nominate officers, then Karina will proceed with a presentation on Basic Landscape Design Principles

2015 meeting schedule: Each 4th Friday of the month at the same time and place.

[Laurie2]

You might need a really big room.

This week's extension office speaker at the Savannah Center needed a much bigger room. When I arrived, the line was already snaking through the lobby. They had reserved a smaller room and found they could have used double the space -- at least. Maybe even triple. Lots of people could not get in.

The speaker was kind enough to do a second presentation at 10:00 for those of us who did not mind waiting. I waited and was so glad I did. The topic was pruning. The speaker was excellent. And he stayed after to answer questions.

It is nice to see so many Villagers interested in learning more about how to take care of our plants and how to choose them.

I bet this new club will be a big success.