2008 Native Plant Symposium - Clemson, SC

	2008 Symposium Brochure (Click on image to download)

Colston Burrell — a garden designer, award-winning author, photographer, and naturalist — will kick off what may just be our best Symposium ever. Burrell is author of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s "Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants", and he will speak to us Friday evening.

On Saturday, attendees will have some tough choices to make. There will be field trips to places like Station Cove; Whitewater River at Bad Creek; the Clemson Forest; Peach Orchard Branch at Eastatoe Creek; Stumphouse Mountain; and Table Rock, Devils Fork, and Keowee-Toxaway State Parks. And there will be workshops: “How to Know and Recognize the Enemy,” a hands-on workshop on invasive plant species commonly used in landscaping or recommended for wildlife habitat and erosion control, by Sudie Daves, Wildlife Biologist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and “Gardening with Native Plants of the Southeast” with tips on using native perennials, trees and shrubs in residential landscaping, by Jamie Oxley of We-Du Natives Nursery.

Saturday evening we all gather back together for dinner at the Madren Conference Center and a presentation by Patrick McMillan, director of Clemson University’s Campbell Museum of Natural History and host of the popular television series Expeditions. Field trips continue on Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m.

Tentative schedule:

Friday, March 28

4:00 p.m - 7:00 p.m. - Registration
5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. - Reception and Silent Auction
7:00 p.m. - Colston Burrell, MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE: NATIVE ALTERNATIVES TO INVASIVE PLANTS, Bell South Auditorium

Saturday, March 29

8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. - Welcome and Introductions
10:00 a.m. - Buses leave for field trips / Workshop with Sudie Daves, HOW TO KNOW AND RECOGNIZE THE ENEMY
12:00 noon - Box Lunches for all Participants
2:00 p.m. - Workshop with Jamie Oxley, Meadowbrook & We-Du Nursery, GARDENING WITH NATIVE PLANTS OF THE SOUTHEAST
5:30 p.m. - Business Meeting
6:30 p.m. - Dinner with Speaker Patrick McMillan, PERSONAL SPACE? THE IMPORTANCE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA CONSERVATION

Sunday, March 30

9:00 a.m. - Field Trips

To register, download a copy of the registration packet and return with check made payable to SCNPS to:

Eva Pratt
SC Native Plant Society
2556 Compton Bridge Rd.
Inman, SC 29349

The complete 2008 symposium brochure can be viewed online or dowloaded for printing (.pdf file).

NOTE: Continuing Education credits for anyone interested are available through Professional Advancement and Continuing Education at Clemson University. To apply, please complete an application form and enclose a check for $6.00 made payable to SCNPS to cover the processing fee to the accrediting program. Mail form & check to: Eva Pratt, SC Native Plant Society, 2556 Compton Bridge Road, Inman, SC 29349

+++ Request to Artists for Auction and Sale Materials +++

A silent auction will be held on Friday afternoon from 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Final bids will be announced and accepted (checks or cash) after the presentation by Colston Burrell at 7:00 p.m. in Bell South Auditorium. Artists who work in media and subject matter appropriate to the theme of the natural world are invited to participate. We request an article to be donated to SCNPS; a minimum bid will be posted. Those wishing to sell other items may do so, with 50% of proceeds going to SCNPS. Donated articles can be set up and handled by SCNPS volunteers. Articles for sale must be set up and sold by the artist or someone he/ she designates.

For more information, contact: Eva Pratt evaoncompton@windstream.net

2007 Native Plant Symposium - Rock Hill, SC

The NCNPS and the SCNPS along with the Museum of York County held the first ever joint symposium and it was a great time! There were great trips, great speakers, great workshops, many native plants to buy and a marvelous silent auction. On Friday evening, Randy Westbrooks eloquently reminded us of the invasive exotic problem but also offered us a sound suggestion to thwart these invasions with an early detection and rapid response method. Then on Saturday, Larry Mellichamp talked to us about our native orchids with the emphasis on “you can grow this or don’t even think about it.” André Michaux’s alter ego, Charlie Williams (I don’t think he had his tricorne on) talked about Magnolia macrophylla. Andy Lazenby whetted our appetite for a couple of the Sunday morning trips to see the Rocky Shoals Spider Lily. Little did the audience realize what the afternoon held in store. We had to work! Now picture this, it has rained all morning and you want me to build a rain garden in the rain?? Yep! That’s exactly what the slave driver/rain garden expert Lara Rozzell had in mind. From start to finish in one afternoon except for the new downspouts. All the plants were donated by the vendors, members and the NC Botanical Garden.

Not to be out done, Mary Stauble showed us how to properly construct a wire compost bin and watched us construct and fill it. While all this was going on other groups were conducting a plant inventory on a new museum site and touring a prairie restoration site, complete with a greenhouse. All of this activity was made even better by the fact that the museum will use all the fruits of this labor. Then we gathered by Lake Wylie for the BBQ and this time the real André Michaux showed up. The only thing missing was warmth. But the chill was cut just a bit when the silent auction closed and everyone got to carry off their treasures. I couldn’t believe André wanted to roast the Mallard family that strolled through the shelter.

Sunday morning dawned cloudy but it cleared off before we departed for the Lily show and Red Lair Farm. Down on the Catawba River at Landsford Canal State Park, the morning was perfect. One group took canoes down the river and were up close and personal with the lilies. Another group walked along the river, tracing the old canal. Both groups were absolutely WOWED by the lilies. Try as you may, it was like trying to photograph a beautiful sunset—you just couldn’t capture the majesty of thousands of lilies in bloom, and to think that the peak bloom was a week away? It can be said without qualification that Jean Woods, NCNPS, Mary Morrison, SCNPS and Nancy Crane from the Museum of York County put on quite a show.