The “Going Native” 32nd Annual Native Plant Workshop was held Saturday, March 19, 2011 from 8:30 AM to 3:00PM at the West Sedona School which was a new venue but proved to be very satisfactory.
The two keynote speakers were Bill McDorman, President of Seeds Trust, who spoke on “The Reasonable Landscape”, and Jeff Schalau, Associate Agent for the University of AZ Cooperative Extension in Yavapai County, whose topic was “The Agriculture/Environment Connection: Producing Safe Food and Clean Water While Conserving Local Ecosystems”.
This year we offered a total of seven workshops and participants were able to choose two:
1. Jason Lavelle: Xeriscaping with Cacti and Native Plants
2. Shaun Symond: Native Plants for Your Home and Garden
3. Dena Greenwood: Attracting Birds with Native Plants
4. Tom Watkins: Non Native Plants and Their Management
5. John Neville: Water Harvesting from Simple to Complete
6. Joy Kimmel: Identifying Native Plants in the Verde Valley
7: Leilah Breitler: How to Make Salves & Tinctures Using Wild Herbs
Advance tickets were $20 for KSB members and $30 for the general public. Besides the workshops, lunch and free penstomen plants were included.
An exciting Silent Auction was held featuring 57 items varying from a mixed case of Arizona Stronghold Wines to meals at Rene’s at Tlaquepaque, Heartline Café, Red’s Restaurant, Elote Café and L’Auberge to a fine wool rug donated by Azadi Fine Rugs to Two seats on any Pink Jeep Tour. The variety was wonderful as well as the generous support of the community.
The fifth annual prestigious Norman B. Herkenham award was presented to Max Licher, resident of Sedona for 28 years. Max was selected for this award based on his work cataloguing, identifying and photographing native species here in Sedona and the Verde Valley, and his continuing work on education in this regard. He has documented about 1200 species of native and naturalized flora of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon, and has made this work available on the Southwest Environmental Information Network.
In the evaluation forms, participants responded that they enjoyed the event, learned a great deal and thought everything was well organized. A special thanks to the committee of Co-Chairs Georgia Munsell and Nancy Spinelli, Debra Fleeger, Wendy Heald, Gail Heyer, Jane McGraw, Michelle & Gerry Snyder, Barbara Saul, Rich Spinelli, Bette & Venkat Venkateswaran, and Jan Wind who put in over 900 volunteer hours.
From business sponsors, the silent auction donations and ticket sales, KSB netted over $13,000 which will be put to good use keeping Sedona beautiful.
The 2012 Native Plant Workshop promises to be just as informative and is scheduled for the end of March.
