In Partnership with the Emerald Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Oregon and Lane Community College, Mount Pisgah Arboretum is excited to present our annual Wildflower Festival FREE in a virtual format for 2021!
Festival Streaming Links (No Registration Required)!
Day One (Saturday): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4bJf6CgRcw
Day Two (Sunday): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmCZ2B9QDSc
Restoration, Recovery, Resilience
The poster plant for the 2021 Wildflower Festival is fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium), representing this year’s theme of restoration, recovery, and resilience as our human and natural communities emerge from the Labor Day wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ll be presenting two nights of programming from 5-7:30PM on Saturday, May 15th and Sunday, May 16th, featuring a variety of virtual field trips and presentations on topics like fire ecology, native plant gardening, plant-pollinator interactions, botanical illustration, and more. SEE HERE for presenter bios and talk descriptions. Full schedule below!
Wildflower Festival Merchandise!
To purchase t-shirts, hoodies, and stickers featuring the Festival artwork, or to purchase recordings of the festival presentations, check out our shop!
Festival Schedule:
Day 1, Saturday, May 15th:
| Time | Topic | Speaker/Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 5:00PM | Habitat Restoration on Private Lands | Tanya Harvey |
| 5:20PM | Nature Illustration Made Easy | David Wagner |
| 5:40PM | Native Plant Garden Tours | Gail Baker & Clay Gautier/ Aryana Ferguson & Bart Johnson |
| 6:00PM | Keying Plants for Beginners | Steven Yeager & Susie Holmes |
| 6:30PM | Friends of Buford Park Native Plant Nursery Tour | Mieko Aoki & April-Dawne Christen |
| 6:50PM | More Than an Oregon Flora | Stephen Meyers |
| 7:05PM | Where Did We Come From and Where are We Going? Fire Ecology and Post-Fire Succession in Western Oregon | Graham Frank |
Day 2, Sunday, May 16th:
| Time | Topic | Speaker/Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 5:00PM | Floral Specialization in Western Oregon Bees | August Jackson |
| 5:20PM | Exploring Mt. Pisgah’s Botanical Bounty – Satisfy Your Curiosity in Just a Few Clicks with Oregon Flora’s New Website | Thea Jaster |
| 5:50PM | Wildflowers for Beginners | Jenny Laxton |
| 6:10PM | Plants of Rocky Habitats | Heron Brae & Alex Queathem |
| 6:30PM | Native Plant Society of Oregon Updates | Dan Luoma |
| 6:40PM | Sketching Wildflowers in the Field | Emily Poole |
| 7:00PM | Wildflower Bioblitz Results | Gail Baker & Susie Holmes |
| 7:15PM | Wildfire Recovery and Resilience 2020: Developing Adaptive Capacity to Increasing Risk in the Willamette Valley | Bart Johnson |
iNaturalist Wildflower Bioblitz:
From May 11-15th, upload your photo observations of plants in Lane County. Your photos will be identified by experts, and these observations will serve as the display at this year’s Wildflower Festival. The dates for this event simulate the plant collections time for the 2021 Festival, which would occur on Sunday, May 16th. At the completion of the project, a species list will be posted at the Mount Pisgah Arboretum & NPSO web sites. The display usually includes 300 to 500 different wild plants collected mostly from Lane County. We hope to create a similar plant list this year, to keep the tradition and data collection alive! For more information, visit the project here. You can also take a look at the great results from last year’s bioblitz here, or check out this detailed and inspiring report on the successes of the bioblitz.
To learn more about how to get the most out of iNaturalist, check out the video below!
Limited-attendance Festival events!
Register and find more info here! Make a weekend of the Virtual Wildflower Festival while also providing much needed support for the Arboretum. The Wildflower Festival is typically one of our largest fundraisers; however, due to Covid-19 restrictions an in-person event is not possible. Please support the Arboretum by joining staff on one of four walks highlighting their favorite wildflowers and trails. Walks are limited to 10 people, and light refreshments will be served at the end.
If you are interested in learning the process of keying to identify wild plants, Steven Yeager and Susie Holmes are leading an interactive remote workshop on Saturday, May 15 designed for beginners. The Zoom session will run from 11 am – 1 pm during which participants will gain an overview of plant diagnostics and learn the basic steps of using dichotomous botanical keys to identify unknown species. Presenters will provide workshop attendees with electronic resources that will be used for practice during this interactive workshop.
Pre-Festival Talk!
The Emerald Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Oregon Presents: Plant Succession 40 years after the Mt. St. Helens Eruption. The Weevil Empire: How Insects Rule and other stories from the Pumice Plain.
Speaker John Bishop is Co-Director & Associate Dean at the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of biological sciences at Washington State University. His ecological research at Mount St. Helens is focused on the effects of herbivores on keystone plant colonists and the resulting cascading impacts on community and ecosystem development.
Friends of Buford Park Native Plant Sale:
Our partners at the Friends of Buford Park are currently holding their annual native plant sale with online ordering. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to bring home a piece of Mount Pisgah’s natural beauty!
