Chapters in Tennessee

Join Tennessee Valley Chapter of Wild Ones to hear Dr. Tommy McElrath present on the beneficial insects in your backyard. 

Dr. McElrath is a graduate of Covenant College and the University of Georgia, where he got his PhD in naming, describing, and classifying species of beetles. He was the insect collections manager of the Illinois Natural History Survey for 8 years, where he managed a collection of over 7 million dead insects and other arthropods, as well as the people that used the collection. He loves getting photos of bugs, and has loved the misunderstood kinds of life since he was a kid in Arizona. More recently, he has returned to Chattanooga to pursue other employment opportunities and is excited to return to some of his roots in the southeastern US. He is currently an adjunct professor at Covenant College, an iNaturalist Ambassador, and a biodiversity enthusiast. 

Winner of the Native Plant Rescue Squad's Sassafras Award!

Over the past 12 years, Wild Ones member Karen Wilkinson has designed and installed 4 garden areas at Fulton High School, and is in the process of converting them to native plantings, with over 100 species and varieties so far. She will take us on a tour, describing her process, successes and challenges.

Register here (includes parking instructions): https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/sassafras-award-winner-fulton-high-school-garden-tour

Have you ever wondered how plants are able to travel across a landscape? Most of us are familiar with the seeds that are able to be blown by the wind (think milkweed, dandelions, trees that produce ‘helicopter seeds’ like elm and maple. 
What about non ‘flighty’ seeds? What is their strategy for dispersal? Who have they partnered with over millennia to ‘carry’ out this job for them? 
Were you able to take the class with Jay Clark at the Shirley Miller Wildflower Trail? How did the spring ephemerals move around the cove?

Why is this important? Learning how ants help spread native plant seeds is essential because it reveals an often‑overlooked partnership that shapes our forest understories. Many spring ephemerals and woodland plants rely on ants to carry their seeds to safe, nutrient‑rich places where they can germinate. This process—called myrmecochory—not only protects seeds from predators but also helps plants expand their populations and maintain genetic diversity. Understanding this relationship reminds us that healthy plant communities depend on healthy insect communities, and that even tiny creatures like ants play an outsized role in sustaining our native ecosystems.

Workshop Overview
This hands-on course introduces participants to the fascinating world of ants and their
ecological roles in native plant gardens. Through field-based observation and interactive
activities, learners will identify common ant species found in gardens and nearby habitats, investigate how ants disperse seeds, form mutualistic partnerships, and exploit
resources—ultimately influencing the composition and health of native plant communities.

This class will be taught by Dr. DeAnna Beasley, UTC professor and researcher.

Join Tennessee Valley Chapter of Wild Ones for our 7-class series in Ecological Gardening, taught by local experts who are passionate personal and professional ecological gardeners. You can attend classes as a series, or as standalone classes. 

This fourth class in the Ecological Gardening Series will cover the basics of site preparation for converting an area into a native planting.

Successful ecological gardens begin long before the first plant goes into the ground. This class will focus on reading and understanding your site through an ecological lens—soil type and health, moisture patterns, sunlight, existing vegetation, and surrounding ecosystems. We’ll discuss how these factors influence plant success and long-term resilience, and how working with the land rather than against it leads to healthier, lower-maintenance gardens. Participants will learn practical strategies for site preparation that support native plant establishment while improving habitat value and ecological function.

Presenters: Jared Odell, Ecologist, CEO/Founder of Tierra Environmental Consulting and Rosy Harpe, Sustainable Landscape Ecologist and Conservation Manager with WaterWays

Join us for a book discussion of Margaret Renkl's The Comfort of Crows: a Backyard Year

Renkl write 52 stories for each week of the year, and we will be discussing the first half on June 22nd and the second on October 26!

In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons--from a crow spied on New Year's Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring--what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer.

Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author--and from us. For, as Renkl writes, "radiant things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world."

With fifty-two original color artworks by the author's brother, Billy Renkl, The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a cherished observer of the natural world.