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AZNPS

TUCSON CHAPTER

Monthly programs are held on the 2nd Wednesday of each month from September through May, beginning at 7:00pm (NOTE TIME CHANGE) at the Arizona Game & Fish Office, 555 N Greasewood (west side of road between Speedway & Anklam). Look for the AZNPS sandwich board that marks the driveway. For information about the Tucson Chapter, please email tucson@aznps.org or our officers.

Join our chapter email events listing! The southern chapter has an e-list set up to bring you news of events, meetings, or outings related to native plants. We'll also alert you to volunteer opportunities along the way. Send your email address to Nancy Zierenberg. Don't forget to keep us updated on email address changes, as well as postal address changes. It will save AZNPS money!

“Wild in the City” Yard Tour

April 12, 2008

Do you want to recreate your yard as native wildlife habitat in the city? Attend the Arizona Native Plant Society’s yard tour of six gardens, including:

  • Gardens for butterfly, moth and other pollinators
  • Backyard ponds for native frogs and fish
  • Native desert tortoise foods and the tortoise adoption program
  • How to create lizard habitat in your yard
  • Native desert and riparian bird habitat

Meet with experienced owners and wildlife experts! Hear about Tucson Audubon’s urban wildife restoration effort, and see how you can reconnect your yard to larger wildlife spaces in Pima County. All sites will include plant lists.  

You can buy tickets the day of the event at The Nature Conservancy campus at 1510 E. Fort Lowell, anytime after 11 a.m. on Saturday. The event runs 11am-4pm. A tour fee ($6 for individuals, or $10 per group of two or more) covers the costs of plant lists for each site, and will assist efforts of the Arizona Native Plant Society’s conservation committee.

click here for details! (this may take a moment)

WINTER PROGRAM

Evening Program Talk: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 Botanical Treasures of Baja California, a virtual tour of the biodiversity of the peninsula presented by Mark Dimmitt. Mark has been at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for 28 years, 18 years as Curator of Botany. Since 1997 he has had the title of Director of Natural History, and recently joined ASDM's newly-created Center for Sonoran Desert Studies. His hobbies include photography, exploring, and especially plant hybridizing. The December meeting is our annual dessert potluck. Please bring a favorite dessert to share. Doors will open at 6:30pm. Come early to socialize!

Evening Program Talk: Wednesday, Jan 9, 2008 Arizona Mesquites - an Overview of the Native, Naturalized, and Cultivated Taxa presented by Matt Johnson. This presentation will feature the taxa of Prosopis that are native to Arizona, as well as the commonly cultivated and naturalized taxa, with information on identification, distribution, horticulture, and ecology. Matt is Program Manager and Curator for the Desert Legume Program (DELEP) which is a joint project of the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior.

Morning Workshop: Tuesday, Jan 15, 2008, 8:00 am: Hands-on Herbarium Training Meet with Phil Jenkins at the U of A Herbarium. Meet at the UA Herbarium in Herring Hall on E. South Campus Drive for an overview of the Herbarium facility and resources. We will also be given training on how to prepare herbarium specimens and collection of plants. Plan for 2-3 hours. This is an important step in the state-wide Arizona Plant Atlas Project (APAP) which our chapter will be undertaking. Our herbarium is the largest in the arid southwest and unique in having the largest collection in the world of plants from Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. This is a great opportunity to contribute to our knowledge base of Arizona native plants.

Evening Program Talk: Wednesday, February 13, 2008: Conserving Crop Biodiversity in the Borderlands presented by Suzanne Nelson. This presentation will highlight Native Seeds/SEARCH’s beginnings and its priority projects for finding and saving dry lands traditional germplasm to provide the necessary crop diversity for future generations. Suzanne Nelson, Ph.D. is Director of Conservation at Native Seeds/SEARCH and has worked more than 20 years in the bi-national Sonoran Desert on the ethnobotany and conservation of crop genetic resources and native plants.

Morning Fieldtrip, Saturday, Feb 23, 2008, 8:00 am: Explore the Pima County Native Plant Nursery. We’ll meet at 8:00 am at the Sweetwater Wetlands to do a little bird watching before heading over to the Pima County Native Plant Nursery nearby.

To get to Sweetwater Preserve: Just north of Prince Road on the frontage road west of the freeway (eastbound), turn west onto Sweetwater Drive (just before Aufmuth Motors). The parking area will be on your left after a couple blocks. If you don’t find our birding group as you walk the sidewalk trail, then we will meet you in the parking lot there at 9:45 to head over to the nursery.

We will meet Chris Poole at 10 am at the Pima County Native Plant Nursery, which takes advantage of the reclaimed water available for grow-outs of native plants used in county projects. She will give us a tour of the facilities, explain how it operates, and give us a short history of how it came to be. This facility is managed by Tucson Botanical Gardens.

If you want to join us at the Nursery, you’ll need to get to it from Ruthrauff and go west under the freeway where it then changes to Camino del Cerro. Shortly after the underpass, look for a road on your left through the chain link fence. There should be a sign there indicating “rear entrance to RRWTP (Roger Rd. Waste Treatment Plant)”. Take that road to get to the parking area. It is the first road south after passing the eastbound frontage road.

Due to construction, it may be a little tricky to get there, but the off-ramp for Camino del Cerro hopefully will not be affected, so those coming from the north should have no problem.

Special presentation to kick off the Arizona Plant Atlas Project. Evening of March 5. Wendy Hodgson from the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix will be presenting this outline and training for our chapter’s participation in this exciting project. Put the date on your calendar and look for more information in the Spring newsletter, which you should receive at the beginning of March!

ONGOING WALKS:

Sabino Canyon Plant Walks. Join us Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists for some of our weekly flower strolls on Mt. Lemmon. We start in May and flower through September. Walks can be anywhere from Prison Camp to Mt. Lemmon summit. The walks are usually during the week, meeting at Palisades Ranger Station at 9AM. Joan Tedford and Bob Porter lead the walks. The group welcomes new participants. For info contact Joan Tedford.

Tohono Chul Park Plant Walks http://www.tohonochulpark.org/walkingtourslowseason.html Every month of the year, and are included in the admission price. No reservations necessary:

  • Connecting Plants and People. 1st Saturday of the month at 10:00am
    Discover the edible and useful plants of the Sonoran Desert.
  • The Great Xeriscape. 3rd Saturday of the month at 10:00am. Unearth the how-to’s for using native and arid-adapted plants in water-saving landscapes.
  • Walk in the Park.Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 9:00am. Experience Tohono Chul Park while learning some of the basics of the ecology of the Sonoran Desert.



AZNPS members with the Sonora Native Plant Society on a field trip in November 2007