About us
Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes . . . promotes environmentally sound landscaping practices to preserve biodiversity through the preservation, restoration and establishment of native plant communities.
Our Wild Ones chapter is dedicated to educating and advocating for biodiversity in the Tennessee Valley. We offer a variety of programs and events throughout the year that teach sustainable landscaping practices using plants that are native to our region. We invite you to attend our programs and to become a member!
Learn more at [TNValley.WildOnes.org](http://www.TNValleyWildOnes.org).
Featured event
Spring Native Plant Sale!
Save the date!
Possible vendors (list confirmed closer to time): Carolina Wild, Chattanooga Bluebird Society, Euchee Meadows Nursery , Native Plant Rescue Squad, Overhill Gardens, Pennyrile Botanics, Reflection Riding Native Plant Nursery, Solstice Handmade, Sustainabillies LLC, Tennessee Naturescapes, Thomas Nursery, The Azalea Farm
Upcoming events
9
Ecological Gardening Series: What is Ecological Gardening?
Joseph Glasscock Community Center, 3620 Tom Weathers Dr,, Red Bank, TN, USJoin 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.
Our first class is to help us get to know the elements of ecological gardening. We read and heard about these in our 2025 studies of Dr. Doug Tallamy's work. Haley Hamblen with the City of Chattanooga's RainSmart program will provide an overview of ecological gardening that each of the following classes will build upon.
---
For those who didn't read Dr. Tallamy or hear him speak at our Distinguished Lecture Series, October 2025, the following is a little bit of what ecological gardening is about from Doug Tallamy's perspective.
Doug Tallamy, an entomologist and author known for promoting ecological gardening through the "Homegrown National Park" initiative, outlines four essential, functional roles that every residential landscape should fulfill to support biodiversity: supporting a diverse food web, managing watersheds, sequestering carbon, and preserving pollinators.
The 4 Pillars of Ecological Landscaping
1. Support a Functional Food Web: Plant native species that host insects, particularly caterpillars, which are essential food for birds and other wildlife.
2. Manage Local Watersheds: Use plants and groundcovers to absorb rainwater, reduce erosion, and filter pollutants, rather than relying on high-runoff lawn.
3. Sequester Carbon: Utilize trees and plants to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil.
4. Support Pollinators: Plant a variety of native flowering plants that bloom throughout the season to provide habitat and food for native bees and butterflies.Key Actions for Implementation
Reduce Lawn Area: Shrink the amount of lawn to create more space for native, biodiversity-supporting plants.
Use Native Plants: Replace non-native plants with native species, such as oak trees, which are considered "keystone" plants.
Eliminate Pesticides/Mosquito Sprays: Avoid chemicals that kill beneficial insects and pollinators.Tallamy emphasizes that these actions transform, private properties into vital, interconnected wildlife corridors.
Speaker: Haley Hamblen, Water Quality Specialist - RainSmart Program Manager, City of Chattanooga, Public Works / Engineering
6 attendees
Book Discussion: The Garden Awakening - Designs to Nurture Our Land & Ourselves
Oddstory Brewing Company, 1604 Central Avenue ,, Chattanooga, TN, USJoin us for a discussion of Mary Reynolds' inspiring book The Garden Awakening. This book is based in the UK, and though plants mentioned in it are not native to our bioregion, the spirit of it's principles of healing the earth, its fascinating ideas for natural design and its encouragement for gardeners to foster a meaningful, reciprocal connection with the land will resonate with Wild Ones.
From Mary Reynolds' website about The Garden Awakening--Designs to Nurture Our Lands and Ourselves, (Also go to the website to watch an endorsement from the late Jane Goodall.):
After many years as an internationally acclaimed garden designer, Mary Reynolds finally realised that something was amiss in her gardens; they were failing on some level. Unwilling to remain as she had imagined and sculpted them, the gardens could not help following their true nature. They were not still life paintings. The land had dreams and intentions of its own…
Mary set out to discover what these intentions were, exploring how we might build a relationship with our gardens that encourages the truth of the land to be expressed alongside our own truth and creativity.
Inside The Garden Awakening is the forgotten bible of gardening. Mary divined and collected old ways of working with land from before we lost the connection with the earth beneath our feet. None of this information is new; it is all ancient, forgotten knowledge and wisdom, buried in the roots of our ancient cultures and within the depths of the earth itself.
Mary has spent a lifetime learning how to live gently with the land, weaving the knowledge out of her own stories, experiences and dreams and bringing it into the light in a way that rips away any mystery or separation from the worlds of energy and spirit around us, and the world of the earth beneath us.
The Garden Awakening is a blueprint for a ground-breaking garden, but it is not a solitary space. Instead it aims to be the foundation of a world wide web of ever expanding, living, interconnected ecosystems. Places where people and nature are one and creation and interrelation expands. You will never be able to look at your garden in the same way again…
Everything becomes simple if you immerse yourself in nature. Life’s complications melt away, leaving only the truth of the present moment, and the presence of what I call God. In this place we can see our soul reflected in every living thing, every gust of wind and splash of rain, and here we can find peace. This is our true home. Yet we are losing what little wild places we have left in nature, those corners where the spirits of the earth are flowing freely, where harmony, and balance still exists and we feel accepted for the truth of who we are. We have gone off course and need to find our way again. An old pathway, overgrown and forgotten, is waiting impatiently to lead us back home. Nature is willing us on.
1 attendee
Past events
79
