Midwest Native Plant Conference

Photo by Ned Keller

I'm just back from the 2nd annual Midwest Native Plant Conference, held this weekend at the beautiful Bergamo Center at Mt. St. Johns on the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio. This is a picture-perfect venue for an event such as this, in part because the 160 acres of grounds have been heavily planted with native species. One only has to walk out the doors of the conference center to become immersed in interesting plants, and animals.

Major props go out to all of the people who organized and ran the conference. Things went smooth as glass, and this was due to the hard work of the conference committee and many volunteers. Thanks also go to all of the speakers, field trip leaders, sponsors and vendors. Many a native plant was sold, and the environment will benefit as a result.

A special thanks are in order for our conference sponsors: Ohio Prairie Nursery, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Yellow Springs Instruments (YSI), Kroger, JF New, and the Greater Cincinnati Chapter of the Wild Ones.

To try and name every volunteer who made the conference possible would be a tall order, and I'd be afraid that I'd omit someone. So please let me just offer a blanket THANK YOU to all! We really appreciate everything that each of you did!

I do want to single out the members of the Conference Committee, all of whom worked countless hours over the past year to organize and execute the conference:

Debi Wolterman, Janet Creamer, Randy Lakes, Sandy McHugh, Sue Metheny, Sandy Seiwert, Barb Stigler. And a HUGE thank you to Kathy McDonald and Macy Reynolds, who were the bosses and kept everything on task!

Photo by Ned Keller

The inner courtyard of the conference center was packed with native plants, all for sale by our wonderful assemblage of native plant nursery vendors.

I'll be back with more about the conference, including some of the wonderful finds that were made on field trips. But, for now, I must decompress...