Kentucky Native Plant Society’s
Wildflower Weekend 2025
Carter Caves State Resort Park
Friday, April 11th & Saturday, April 12th, 2025

The schedule is set and registration is now open for Wildflower Weekend 2025, April 11th-12th, at Carter Caves State Resort Park in Carter County. Join nature lovers, families, community scientists, amateur naturalists, and professional botanists from across the commonwealth, as we explore the beauty and diversity of Kentucky’s natural history.

Wildflower Weekend is open to the public and is family friendly. Pre-registration for the weekend is required using the form at the bottom of this page (click here to go to the form). Admission is $10 for adults, $3 for ages 13-17, and free for ages 12 & under. The schedule for the weekend is listed below.

In odd numbered years, KNPS ventures from our usual Natural Bridge SRP location and explores the biodiversity of other state parks. We are proud to host this year’s event at Carter Caves State Resort Park!

We have always tried to make Wildflower Weekend a family friendly event (kids 12 and under attend free). This year we are offering four kid-centered activities, two Cave Tours on Saturday, a “Wildflower Wander: An Exploration for Young Adventurers” on Saturday morning and then, on Saturday afternoon, the “Kid’s Nature Activity,” with fun botanical and nature activities designed for the young naturalist. See details in the schedule below. Carter Caves State Resort Park also has several playgrounds, a basketball court, gem mining and mini golf.

We are offering over 20 different hikes this year! In addition to our usual “all things botanical” hikes, we have a few hikes concentrating on birds, caves, general biodiversity, pollinators and a bat mist net educational experience.

Leading up to Wildflower Weekend will be our week long Botany Blitz 2025, which will run from Saturday, April 5th, through Sunday, April 13th. This is the fifth year for our Botany Blitz, which is an effort to document as many plant species as possible within Kentucky during the week preceding Wildflower Weekend. The Botany Blitz will be again hosted on the community science website iNaturalist, and participants will be using the iNaturalist mobile app (or website, if your preferred camera is not a smartphone!) to upload photos of budding and blooming plants they observe in local parks, state parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and nature preserves.

To participate, log in to your iNaturalist account or sign up for an iNaturalist account if you’re not already a user, and join the Botany Blitz 2025 project (just click “Join” in the top right corner of the project page). Then download the mobile app for iPhone or Android. The app is very easy to use, however we recommend taking a few practice observations to get the hang of it before the Botany Blitz begins! You don’t need to know the identity of a plant to make an observation, since the app provides ID suggestions based on your photos and geographical location. Additionally, the iNaturalist community is comprised of many knowledgeable botanists and naturalists who can review your observations and suggest alternative identifications. At the end of the Botany Blitz, we’ll tally up our combined observations to see how many species we were able to find in 2025!

In 2024, the Botany Blitz was a great success. We had 61 observers who made over 3,000 observations of about 570 plant species. We can do even better this year! Help us make this Botany Blitz the biggest ever!

Of course, you don’t need to wait till the Botany Blitz to start making observations on iNaturalist, and wildflowers across Kentucky are already starting to show their stuff!

For a second year, in the spirit of bringing together creative expression and love for nature, the KNPS Board sponsored a Wildflower Weekend 2025 Logo Design Contest. This was an open design contest to come up with a logo for Wildflower Weekend 2025 (April 11-13 at Carter Caves SRP). The logo will be used on t-shirts, hoodies, and coffee cups, as well as on all publicity about the event. The submitted designs will be presented to the KNPS membership for voting and the winner will be awarded $200 and be recognized on the KNPS website.

Wildflower Weekend 2025 will be held at Carter Caves SRP in Carter County. The county is a hot spot of Viola diversity in Kentucky, with 13 species of Viola found in the county. One species of violet was selected to be the species around which the logo design would focus, the three-parted yellow violet (Viola tripartita). It is native to Eastern North America, being primarily found in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The species is rare throughout its range, especially so in Kentucky where it has only been reported from Carter County.

We put out a call to artists and graphic designers who were members of the Kentucky Native Plant Society in early December. The submitted designs were then presented to the KNPS membership for voting during the month of January. The membership of KNPS responded, with 130 members casting a vote. The beautiful logo featured above came out on top as the winning entry. The design, featuring the three-parted yellow violet, two other species of violet found in Carter county, and a background of Carter Caves, was submitted by Cheryll Frank of Scott Co., KY.

Leading up to Wildflower Weekend 2025, at Carter Caves SRP, KNPS will be holding our 5th annual Botany Blitz 2025, which will run from Saturday, April 5th, through Sunday, April 13th. The spring Botany Blitz is a group effort to document as many plant species as possible within Kentucky during the week preceding Wildflower Weekend, and will again be hosted on the community science platform iNaturalist. Participants can use the iNaturalist mobile app in the field (or use the website if your preferred camera is not a smartphone!) to document their observations of Kentucky’s flora.

As in previous years, Botany Blitz 2025 will commence with a series of Kick Off Hikes held Saturday, April 5th and Sunday, April 6th, in parks and natural areas across the Commonwealth. These easygoing wildflower walks are led by local botanizers and naturalists who are familiar with the native flora that hikers will encounter. As the Kick Off Hikes are meant to start the Botany Blitz, we are hoping that folks who plan to participate will sign up for an iNaturalist account (if they don’t already have one) and join the Botany Blitz 2025 project, although you do not need to be an iNaturalist user to enjoy these hikes.