Duval Audubon Society, Northeast Florida Sierra Club, the Ixia Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society, and the Garden Club of Jacksonville partner for a special Horticulture Corner program with Doug Tallamy of the Homegrown National Park project, an effort to create 20 million acres of native plantings in yards and communities across the United States.

These four organizations are joining together to encourage people in Northeast Florida to sign up their yards for the Homegrown National Park challenge. They will suggest sets of native plants for different conditions, such as sunny, shady, or dry, and provide handouts with helpful information. Dr. Tallamy will give a presentation by Zoom which will be followed by an in-person introduction to easy to grow native plants with representatives from Duval Audubon, Ixia Chapter of FNPS, and Northeast Florida Sierra Club.

Arrive at 5:30 p.m. to visit tables representing each organization and learn how you can get involved. The program begins at 6 p.m.

Native Plant Sale

There will be a native plant sale at the event to help people get started on native plantings in their own yards.

About Doug Tallamy and the Homegrown National Park project

Dr. Tallamy founded Homegrown National Park along with Michelle Alfandari as a grass-roots call to action to regenerate biodiversity, catalyzing a collective effort of individual homeowners, property owners, land managers, farmers, and anyone with some soil to start a new habitat by planting native plants and removing most invasive plants. It is the largest cooperative conservation project ever conceived or attempted.“Our National Parks, no matter how grand in scale are too small and separated from one another to preserve species to the levels needed,” Tallamy says. “Thus, the concept for Homegrown National Park, a bottom-up call-to-action to restore habitat where we live and work, and to a lesser extent where we farm and graze, extending national parks to our yards and communities.”

The Homegrown National Park website features an interactive map that shows each person’s contribution to planting native by state, county, and zip code. You can add your yard to this map!

Dr. Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His book “Bringing Nature Home” was awarded the 2008 Silver Medal by the Garden Writers’ Association. “Nature’s Best Hope,” a New York Times Best Seller, was released in February 2020, and his latest book “The Nature of Oaks” was released by Timber press in March 2021. Among his awards are the Garden Club of America Margaret Douglas Medal for Conservation, the Tom Dodd Jr. Award of Excellence, the 2018 AHS B.Y. Morrison Communication Award, and the 2019 Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award.

In-person and on Zoom

This program will be offered simultaneously in-person at the Garden Club and on Zoom. COVID-19 health and safety precautions will be practiced during the event and will be outlined closer to the event.

The program is free and open to the public.