President’s Message

Nov 19, 2011 by cnps2011

Thanks to all of you who made the “Great Photography and Dessert Bash” a great success. I saw many photographs that better those on the covers of national magazines, including some submitted by a seven year-old child.

As you read this we are gearing up for our biggest fundraiser of the year, the annual plant sale, and our next regular program reflects the importance of horticulture with a presentation by Randy Baldwin, the owner of San Marcos Growers.

As I mentioned last month we are developing webpage trail guides to popular local trails that will tell you the where and when of the native plants. I am particularly interested in finding volunteers who will choose a trail, and then record the vegetation throughout the year and when they saw it. If you would like to do this and want to reserve a particular trail for yourself, contact me. You don’t have to be a great taxonomist… if you see an unknown plant, take photos of it from all angles and our experts can sort it out for you.

On a closely related issue we are collecting plant checklists for trails and locations, so start compiling those for your favorite places. If you have somebody else’s list on hand, send it to us along with the author’s contact information and we will see if we can publish it.

CNPS and Friends of the Carrizo Plain are cooperating on a flower photograph book of the flora of the Carrizo Plain, which will feature a tad, fewer species than our just published San Luis Obispo book. We are going to try to do as much as possible in-house, and are looking for a pre-publication layout and setup person to work with the group, which is all-volunteer. If anybody has such skills please contact me.

I would like to welcome Kristie Haydu as our new Secretary, although she is already doing service as our Chapter Council Representative. I would like to thank Lauren Brown for performing the Council Rep. role for a long time, and hope she has success on the CNPS Board where she will wield terrible power and will be awesome to behold. She continues as our “Exotics” chair.

David Chipping