South Texas Chapter Archive
2022 South Texas Chapter Activity
October 22, 2022 Meeting
A meeting of the South Texas Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas was held Saturday, October 22, 2022 from 2 PM to 4:15 PM at Gill’s Nursery. James Gill gave a talk and question and answer time concerning natives the nursery carries and other topics of interest. He covered the cultural requirements and needs of over 20 different plants, including grasses, ground covers, shrubs and trees.
Hummingbird Festival Outreach Report—Kris Kirkwood reported on the butterfly tent we hosted at the Hummingbird Festival in Rockport. She said people enjoyed seeing monarch, red admiral, painted lady and mourning cloak butterflies. Native plants in the tent were lent to us by the Mid-Coast Chapter, Texas Master Naturalists from their HBC native-plant-sale stock.
Botanical Garden Funds—Members present discussed the $5000 offer made to the botanical gardens years ago to landscape when their new building goes up. That has not happened. So we are asking members to think about other places in the community to use that $5000 and to talk about your ideas again at our February meeting.
Native Landscape Certification Program (NLCP)—Ray Kirkwood explained the program. Our South Texas chapter has not offered a local-area course for the last few years. Any volunteers interested in leading the effort to begin the NLCP anew please contact Katie Swanson. Mission-Aransas NERR can offer space and support.
Corpus Christi Area Garden Council (CCAGC) Membership—The CCAGC has asked that we host the council meeting of March 14, 2023. After some discussion about the benefits of membership in the Council, Ray Kirkwood moved that we remain as members, Rhoda Poenisch seconded and the motion carried unanimously. We will be looking for volunteers to assist with the March 14 meeting.
2023 Calendar of Events and Proposed Time Change—Members discussed changing the time for our meetings from the afternoon to 10 AM. After more discussion it was decided that we would meet each month instead of quarterly except November and December (social). A draft 2023 schedule will be sent to members in November and posted on our website.
July 23, 2022 Meeting
The meeting was held at the Ben F. McDonald Library, 4044 Greenwood Dr, Corpus Christi TX 78416. Ernie Schertz presented “Now is the Time to Plant Wildflowers” on growing wildflowers of our Coastal Bend area including soil preparation, planting, pretreatment needs of the seeds, harvesting seeds, and related information.
NPSOT Recognition Pins—15- and 20-year pins were presented to Marion Alaback, Rebecca Elzner, Rhoda and Don Poenisch. Carlos Valdez volunteered to deliver James Gill’s pins. Not present to receive pins: June Herbst, Jann Miller, Christina Mild. Rhoda Poenisch was recognized as a lifetime member, and received a special lifetime bluebonnet pin.
Kate Hillhouse Scholarship Fund—Ray read the letter from Meg Inglis, Executive Director of the Native Plant Society of Texas in appreciation of our chapter $2,000 donation.
Area Invasive Plant List—the State organization has requested a list of invasive plants in our area, along with suggestions for native plants to replace them. Kris Kirkwood put together the list of invaders in the Coastal Bend based on lists developed by SoTX chapter in the past. Christina Mild, expert in invasive and native plants in deep south Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, added to the list, marking Coastal Bend invaders that also invade that area and adding four plants that are not presently a problem in the Coastal Bend. Ray stated that members do not feel that a one-to-one list of replacement plants would be valuable, given that a homeowner was unlikely to want to replace an invasive grass, for example, with a native grass in every case. Members agreed and it was decided to present State with a list of good natives in our areas—including soil, sun, and water needs—that might be fitted to the habitat from which a homeowner was removing invasives.
NPSOT Butterfly Tent—the chapter will again sponsor the event at HummerBird Celebration Fri–Sun, Sep 16-18, 2022. A signup sheet will be available, and members are requested to help Rhoda and Kris to staff the booth. It’s great fun to watch the public enjoy the butterflies and answer questions about them and about native plants.
Election of Officers
President: Katie Swanson
Vice-President: Karen Easton
Treasurer: Janet Cunningham
Secretary: Rebecca Elzner
May 14, 2022 Meeting
The meeting was held Saturday, May 14, 2022, beginning at 1:00 pm at the Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve & Learning Center, 2446 N. Oso Parkway, Corpus Christi, TX 78414. Sara Jose, Preserve Manager, welcomed us and provided an introduction to the Preserve and Learning Center, and then led a walk on two trails at the preserve: the Story Walk, and a walk through native vegetation to the Oso Bay Shore Overlook.
2020 South Texas Chapter Activity
Only one meeting in 2020 due to Covid shutdown:
Saturday, January 25, 2020, 2:00 pm at the Owen R. Hopkins Public Library—Katie Swanson, Stewardship Coordinator for the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), spoke about our own local NERR, and provided information on various ways that we could work alongside the NERR in helping conserve, protect, and understand habitats within the Coastal Bend region. Volunteer opportunities range from vegetation and bird monitoring at Fennessey Ranch, to debris cleanup at Egery Flats, to dune restoration, to native seed collection on the UT Marine Science Institute Campus in Port Aransas, and other opportunities that may arise.
2019 South Texas Chapter Activity
2019 Meetings
Saturday, January 26, 2019, 2:00 pm —Anatomy and Life Cycle of a Butterfly by Brigid Berger, Native Plants for Butterflies and Pollinators by Ernie Schertz at the Ben F. McDonald Public Library, 4044 Greenwood Dr, Corpus Christi, TX 78416.
Saturday, April 13, 2019, 9:00 am—Field trip to Welder Wildlife Refuge. Note: Date changed to avoid conflict with South Texas Botanical Garden Birdiest Festival.
Saturday, July 27, 2019, 2:00 pm—Honey Bees 101: Biology & Behavior, by Justinn J. Jones—Owen R. Hopkins Public Library, 3202 Mckinzie Rd, Corpus Christi, TX 78410
Saturday, October 26, 2019, 2:00 pm—Shelly Maher: Propagating Native Plants from Seed, Division, and Cuttings—Kika de la Garza Plant Materials Center, 3409 N FM 1355, Kingsville, TX 78363.
2019 Field Trips/Other Events
Field Trip: Welder Wildlife Refuge April 13, 2019—If you missed this event, you missed a great day among the wildflowers! We also visited the Welder Foundation herbarium and collections as well as touring the recently renovated museum.
Outreach: Corpus Christi Spring Home & Garden Show, February 15-17, 2019—The chapter was again invited by the Corpus Christi Garden Council and Nueces County AgriLife and Master Gardeners to have a native-plant outreach booth as part of their exhibit at the show. James Gill lent fine examples of natives from Gill’s Landscape Nursery and Neil and Nan Adams, Karen Easton, Becky Elzner, Tom Knoblock, Debbie Kucera, Shelly Maher, Alese Smith, Sandra Williams, and Ray & Kris Kirkwood manned the booth and provided the public with information about the importance of natives. We talked to a lot of people and gave out lots of information about using native plants to bring birds and butterflies to the home landscape. In addition, Kris gave a presentation on how to garden for birds and butterflies using natives.
Outreach: Butterfly Tent at HummerBird Celebration September 20-22, 2019—Our Chapter again sponsored the butterfly tent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the HummerBird Celebration in Rockport. Members handed out brochures, shared their passion for native plants, and enjoyed watching visitors enjoy the butterflies! The 36 Monarchs and 24 Painted Ladies did their part by demonstrating how much they enjoyed the Texas Kidneywood, Mealy Blue Sage, Hooker’s Palafoxia, Scorpiontail Heliotrope, Silverleaf Sunflowers, and other native plants in the tent. They hated to leave when we freed them on Sunday
2018 South Texas Chapter Activity
Sunday, October 21, 2018, 2:00 pm — Members and guests toured the A.E. Leonard Family Native Plant Garden at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Center at 1730 West Corral Avenue in Kingsville, Texas. The garden features over three hundred species of native plants from habitats of south Texas. Created by David Mahler of Austin, one of the best native plant landscape designers in Texas, the walk-through garden features seven plant display areas: riparian creek, cactus garden, rare plants, south Texas brush community, bordas-escarpment, oak motte, and native prairie.
A.E. Leonard Family Native Plant Gardens
The day and the gardens and the butterflies were wonderful! Click for more photos…
Corpus Christi Fall Home & Garden Show, September 28-30, 2018—The chapter had a native-plant outreach booth as part of the Corpus Christi Garden Council/Nueces County AgriLife exhibit at the show. We talked with show visitors about native plants and felt the effort was worth repeating.
Butterfly Tent at HummerBird Celebration, September 14-16, 2018—Our Chapter sponsored the butterfly tent Friday at the HummerBird Celebration in Rockport. Unfortunately, a storm during the night destroyed the tent. Fortunately Rhoda Poenisch had taken the butterflies home for the night, so no butterflies were injured. Rhoda released the butterflies on Saturday morning at Linda S. Castro Sanctuary. Rhoda has been investigating the purchase of a new tent and the chapter will pay for the replacement tent.
July 28, 2018—The July 2018 quarterly meeting was held at the Janet F. Harte Library in Flour Bluff, 2629 Waldron Rd, Corpus Christi, TX 78418. Dr. Richard Patrock, local entomologist and adjunct professor at TAMU-Kingsville, presented “A Primer on Insect Pollinators in the Coastal Bend.” He brought a collection of Coastal Bend pollinators and talked with attendees about them after the presentation.
April 21, 2018—Members and guests toured the Water Wise Wildlife Garden at UTMSI/Mission-Aransas National Estaurine Research Reserve in Port Aransas. Kelley Savage of the M-A NERR and Laura Clark, one of the designers, spoke about the planning and plants, the educational aspect of the gardens, the savings in overhead, and the importance to the community. No business meeting.
January 28, 2018—The January quarterly meeting was held at the Owen R. Hopkins Public Library, 3202 McKinzie Rd, Corpus Christi. Dr. Leslie Bush, a paleoethnobotanist (an archaeologist who specializes in identifying bits of plants preserved on archaeological sites). spoke on “Uses of Plants by Ancient Texans.” Dr. Bush outlined how archaeologists recover and identify plant remains, discussed one of the most visible archaeological signatures of ancient plant use, earth ovens, and talked about food plants along the Texas coast with particular reference to Cabeza de Vaca.
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2017 South Texas Chapter Activity
On October 22, 2016, Kris Kirkwood presented “Tamaulipan Thornscrub” about the prickly shrubs and trees of our South Texas landscape and their value to wildlife and the people who live here. Ray Kirkwood led a tour of the South Texas Botanical Garden and Nature Center nature trail to see many of the plants in the presentation.
On January 28, 2017, Dr. Leslie Bush, a paleoethnobotanist (an archaeologist who specializes in identifying bits of plants preserved on archaeological sites), spoke on “Uses of Plants by Ancient Texans.”
On April 22, 2017, Lillian Bass, a Biology professor at Del Mar College, spoke on the difficulties of getting a native plant garden started on campus.
On July 22, 2017, Carol Goolsby, Education Director at Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen, presented: Wildflower Design – a presentation that takes a different approach to traditional wildflower presentations by showing 13 botanical strategies that different flowers use to give them their advantages. She also presented “Not Pretty Enough” – a 15-minute musical PowerPoint showing plants of the LRGV, many of which overlap into the Corpus Christi area.
Field Trip: On Saturday, March 18, 2017, members of the South Texas Chapter journeyed to Rancho Lomitas, near Rio Grande City, TX. There ranch owners Benito & Toni Trevino demonstrated cooking with south Texas native plants. Benito then gave us a tour of his facility to show us the great array of native plants on his property and lecture on how the plants were used historically for food and medicine.
Native Landscape Certification Program Class: The South Texas Chapter held their second NLCP Level I class on Saturday April 15, 2017 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Corpus Christi with 27 attendees. Twenty-four participants completed the test and 23 earned certification.
Demonstration Gardens: South Texas Chapter does not maintain any gardens as an organization. However, individual members help with maintenance of several gardens within our area, including the Water Wise Native Garden in Port Aransas and three Aransas Pathways gardens in Rockport: the Linda S. Castro Nature Sanctuary, Tule East Demonstration Garden, and Connie Hagar Cottage Sanctuary.
Outreach:
October 15, 2016—Members staffed a booth at Refuge Day in conjunction with the grand opening of the new Pollinator Garden at the Refuge. The garden was designed by STX member Ellen Reisinger and Linda Frank and is maintained by volunteers from Friends of Aransas and Matagorda Island (FAMI), Mid-Coast Texas Master Naturalists, and South Texas Chapter NPSOT members. The garden was alive with butterflies and other pollinators, and our outreach booth staffers answered questions and handed out literature about native plants, pollinators, and NPSOT.
Rhoda Poenisch staffed a booth and gave a short 15-minute talk about native plants at the Winter Expo in Aransas Pass Saturday, January 21, 2017 at the Aransas Pass Civic Center
The Rockport HummerBird Celebration was cancelled September 15-17 due to Hurricane Harvey, and therefore the South Texas Chapter was unable to sponsor the Butterfly Tent at that event.
The chapter provided a support letter for the proposed project “Using Green Infrastructure to Address Stormwater Management Needs in Port Aransas.”
Fundraisers: No fundraisers were conducted.
Collaborations, Partnerships, and Associations
- Corpus Christi Garden Council
- South Texas Chapter, Texas Master Naturalist
- Mid-Coast Chapter, Texas Master Naturalist
- South Texas Botanical Gardens
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2016 South Texas Chapter Activity
Each year, the State NPSOT office requests that each chapter report activities during the fiscal year ending September 1. Here’s our South Texas Chapter report for August 31, 2015 to September 1, 2016.
Educational Programs, Workshops, Seminars
October 10, 2015—Monarch Workshop: Cathy Downs gave a 3-hour presentation on Monarch butterflies and waystations at the AgriLife Extension Office, 892 Airport Road, Rockport, TX 78382. About 65 people attended. A $5 registration fee was charged, and donated to the Monarch Watch program in honor of speaker Cathy Downs.
January 23, 2016—Shelly Maher of the Kika de la Garza Plant Materials Center gave a presentation on the purpose of the PMC (research and development that leads to native seeds becoming commercially available). She followed that with a workshop on propagating native plants from seed, division, and cuttings. Twenty-one people attended and participated in the workshop.
March 12, 2016—Native Landscape Certification Program Level 1 Workshop—presented by the South Texas Chapter at Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve, Corpus Christi. Twenty-nine individuals attended, 7 of whom work in a professional landscaping capacity. Kay Jenkins of TPWD and Meg Inglis, NLCP Coordinator, facilitated the workshop.
April 23, 2016—Forrest Smith, director of the South Texas Natives Project at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, spoke on “The South Texas Natives Project – Taking native seeds from a handful to a landscape impact.” Twelve people attended.
July 23, 2016—Ernie Schertz presented “Native Beauty in Your Backyard” about landscaping with natives plants. Twenty-two people attended.
February 10 & August 20—At the request of the South Texas Botanical Gardens, Kris Kirkwood presented “Plants That Run Amok” about replacing invasive exotic plant species with native alternatives.
Field Trips: No field trips were conducted.
Community Outreach:
March 10, 2016—Ana Abarca and Rhoda Poenisch gave 30-minute native-plant presentations to several classes at the Mireles Elementary Science Spectacular and recommend continuing to support such educational events.
April 9, 2016—Ana Abarca, Marthanne Mitchell, and Rhoda Poenisch staffed a NPSOT outreach booth at Corpus Christi’s Earth Day/Bay.
September 16-18, 2016—South Texas NPSOT Outreach sponsored the Butterfly Tent at Hummer/Bird Celebration in Rockport. Members answered questions about plants and Monarchs and enjoyed their volunteer time. Rhoda Poenisch reported that visitors were very engaged, asking intelligent questions and learning about natives and butterflies. Volunteers were impressed with how quickly the butterflies found the Texas Kidneywood lent to us by the Mid-Coast Master Naturalist plant sale volunteers, how much they used it, and how reluctant they were to leave it after the butterfly release. Our South Texas Chapter is taking on the HBC Butterfly Tent as an official outreach project each year, beginning now. It’s the perfect opportunity to tell people about native plants and their partnership with butterflies.
Fundraisers: No fundraisers were conducted.
Other Activities
April 6—Three members assisted USFWS personnel in conducting a Black lace Cactus (Echinocereus reichenbachii) Rare Plant Survey on private property.
Ellen Reisinger, South Texas NPSOT member, designed a Pollinator Garden for the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge has installed her design.
