Texas Native Plant Appreciation Day

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FloraFEST Speaker April 27 with Native Plant Sale April 28 and 29

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

18 April 2012

Museum Contact: John White, Curator

Email: jmwhite@utep.edu

Phone: 915-747-5335

Dr. David Anderson to Speak at Annual Native Plant Sale, FloraFEST

El Paso, Texas – Area gardeners are awaiting the chance to purchase plants for desert landscaping naturally.  FloraFEST, the annual plant sale, features hundreds of plants native to the Chihuahuan Desert or plants that are desert adapted.  Proceeds from the annual sale support the operation of the Chihuahuan Desert Gardens.  This botanic collection, displaying some 700 different species and horticultural cultivars, is dedicated to the flora of the Chihuahuan Desert region.  The collection represents the largest public assemblage of Chihuahuan desert plants in the world.

Guest speaker, Dr. David Anderson will be featured at this year’s FloraFEST Lecture Series.  David Lee Anderson is Land Manager and botanist at White Sands Missile Range since 1990.  He completed his PhD in Range Ecology in 1989 at New Mexico State University.  Prior to that, he worked in Argentina as national coordinator of range research for 20 years. He worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Idaho, Utah and New Mexico on and off between 1956 and 1963.

Dr. Anderson will speak on Friday, April 27, 2012 at 7 pm in Room 116 of the Undergraduate Learning Center on the University of Texas at El Paso campus.  A reception will follow at the Centennial Museum and Chihuahuan Desert Gardens located at the corner of University Ave. and Wiggins Rd. on the UTEP campus.  The El Paso Native Plant Society, The West Texas Urban Forestry Council, and the Centennial Museum sponsor this event.

Regular museum hours are Tuesday to Saturday from 10 am to 4:30 pm. For more information, contact the Centennial Museum at 915-747-5565 or www.museum.utep.edu.

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UTEP Campus Map

Celebrate Native Plant Week

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Garden at Moor Children's Home To Be Dedicated Saturday

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The Heinz Duerkop Hummingbird and Butterfly Habitat at the Lee and Beulah Moor Children's Home will be dedicated on Saturday, June 5, at 10:00 a.m.

The habitat has been designed and built by the El Paso Chapter of the Native Plant Society of New Mexico in cooperation with the El Paso Cactus and Rock Club, the Texas AgriLife Extension Service Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists, Franklin High School Junior ROTC, Ft. Bliss Sergeants Major Academy, the Franklin High School Business and Professional Class and Sam Jensen, Eagle Scout. Work has been going on for more than a year.

The project includes two garden areas with seating. The gardens are designed as labyrinths - spiral paths based on Native American tradition that lead to the seating areas. Native plants, shrubs and trees that attract hummingbirds and butterflies have been planted and are blooming. A solar powered fountain provides a quiet background sound for visitors. Expansion and construction of an arroyo will help control water runoff on the property. The hummingbird and butterfly habitat and an earlier cactus garden have helped the children's home reduce the amount of grass requiring water and maintenance.

Heinz Duerkop died in a bicycle/vehicle crash last fall. His wife, Margo, and friends in El Paso and his native Germany provided financial contributions to create the Hummingbird and Butterfly Habitat as a lasting memorial commemorating his love of native plants and nature.

Mrs. Duerkop and their son will be at the dedication ceremonies.

Virginia Morris, president of the El Paso Chapter of the Native Plant Society of New Mexico spearheaded this effort. She coordinated the design and development and received donations of plants, construction materials and monetary donations for the project.

Native Plant Workshop and Plant Sale This Saturday

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Volunteers Make Progress at Children's Home in Just 5 Work Days

Volunteers from the El Paso Native Plant Society and the El Paso Cactus and Rock Club are making steady progress at the Lee and Beulah Moor Children's Home. A cactus garden is being completed; room for a garden has been created next to the greenhouse; old gravel from an earlier "zeroscaped" disaster is being moved to make room for a meditation garden to begin in the fall.

Rex Morris (above) spruces up the greenhouse while Nancy Schuler (below) moves rock from the zeroscaped area to the cactus garden.

Here you can see land cleared next to the greenhouse for a garden.

Below is a view of the cactus garden:

Project coordinator, Virginia Morris, happily reports that Dr. Wynn Anderson of UTEP He is ordering a variety of plants (sotols, hesperaloes, sages, etc) for the cactus garden.

Virginia also reports that all of the work accomplished so far has been done in just 5 work days!