News
Growing Grounds Farm is expanding the hours that the general public can shop at the Farm on Orcutt Road to 11am-4pm on the 3rd Tuesday of every month.
CNPS members receive a 20% discount off retail prices.
President’s Message January 2012
Another year! How they fly. I am hoping that the current rainfall deficit remedies itself and we will have a great year of wildflowers. As I write this I am preparing, along with several other chapter members, to attend the CNPS Conservation Conference in San Diego. When you look at the program and talk abstracts, it is clear that everything from art to anthropology, plant taxonomy to computer science, can play a role somewhere within the CNPS mission to protect our flora. The new school curriculum developed with John Muir Laws also shows...
read morePresident’s Message
I think our November meeting was the highest attendance we have ever had at a regular meeting, thanks mostly to the host of Cal Poly students. Randy Baldwin’s fine presentation of plants that are “in the trade” and the human interest of their history of introduction might reinforce the notion that study of native plants is not just about learning latin binomials. The key now is to find activities that will hold the interests of these students. Ideas? As I noted earlier, we are starting to mount plant lists on the web site on...
read morePresident’s Message
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...
read morePresident’s Message
After the summer break, the SLO Chapter is starting up again with our traditional October Meeting, a dessert potluck and member/guest-contributed slide show. We had a very productive Board meeting in which plans for additional chapter activities were proposed. Our Photography committee will be revived, and we are seeking people who like nature photography and all that goes with it. We are also looking to develop web-page trail guides to popular local trails that will tell you the where and when of the native plants. Our Board is...
read morePresident’s Message
If you have not yet visited our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/CNPSSLO, please do as it shows recent photos of field trips, up to date flower locations and more. If you would like to post information, you can send it to me at dchippin@calpoly.edu. We had two excellent early April field trips to Shell Creek and then to Chimineas Ranch with George Butterworth. Even though we lacked the lush windflower carpets of last year, there was plenty to see at both locations including interesting snakes and lizards. In spite of the heavy rains of...
read morePresident’s Message
We had an excellent turnout for our yearly north county meeting, and it was really great to see faces that don’t usually appear at out SLO Meetings. I would be very interested to hear from north county people on what they thought of the program, and what they would like to see next year. Our next meeting not held in the Vets Hall, but at Shell Creek (field trip information). This is always a fun outing, and it may be a bit more of an adventure as the creek is running high at the moment. I think the wildflowers will be great this year,...
read morePresident’s Message
Those of you who missed Bob Stafford’s wonderful talk on the wildlife of the Carrizo Plain and Chimineas Ranch areas can have another chance to learn about the area at our March 3 meeting in Atascadero. Following the snafu last year when we posted insufficient information on time and place, we want to make sure you find your way to the AARP building at the rear of the Lake Pavilion in Atascadero Lake Park. Dirk Walters and myself have developed a slide show on the wildflowers and landscapes of the area, and will start at 7:30 after the...
read morePresident’s Message
The rain and warm weather has fuchsia flowered gooseberry, trillium and ceanothus in full flower, and now, in mid January, the accursed veldt grass is setting seed. If not global warming, it is certainly global weirding. It seems to me that we should make notes on early flowering when we see it as it could be useful in global warming studies. North County members will be happy to know that we will be having our March 3 meeting at the Atascadero Association of Retired People (AARP) Hall, which is right across the parking lot for the Lake...
read morePresident’s Message
Another Plant Sale is behind us, and everybody likes our new location. We had a lot of people coming in due to our better visibility from the highway, thanks to our sign makers. Thanks also to all of the volunteers, to people to grew plants for the sale, and from those of you who bought plants and put our chapter on a firm financial footing. Even the threatening weather held off until the last half hour when we were packing up. Other groups are getting on board with our celebration of Native Plant Week in April. So far, both the SLO and Nipomo...
read morePresident’s Message
I want to thank all of the photographers and dessert creators who made out first meeting so successful. There were so many contributions that I think we will have to slightly trim the time allocated per presentation next year, but that is hard when so many of the photographs could have been on national magazine covers. While most pictures were of interesting and beautiful subjects, there were a couple of4 talks with some solid scientific content, and one, from John Chesnut, showed very real evidence of climate change as desert sagebrush was...
read more
Connect with CNPS-SLO