To begin Botany Blitz 2024 and Wildflower Week, on Saturday, April 6th, KNPS will host a series of Kick Off Hikes in parks and natural areas across the Commonwealth.
These mainly easy nature walks will be led by local botanizers who know the native plant species that will be encountered in each area. As the Kick Off hikes are meant to start the Botany Blitz project, 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 2024 project.
Please fill out the form at the bottom of this page if you are going to participate in one of the First Day hikes. If you have any questions email us at WildflowerWeekend2024@knps.org.
This year we are celebrating 35 years of Wildflower Weekend! That’s right! Naturalists and nature lovers from all across Kentucky have been gathering in the spirit of botanical appreciation, fellowship and education at Wildflower Weekend since May 1989! We are proud to host this year’s event at Natural Bridge SRP, the original location of the very first KNPS Wildflower Weekend (scroll down to page 3).
Help Us Celebrate with Your Photos!
To help celebrate our 35 years of Wildflower Weekend, we are planning to put together a montage of photos from prior Weekends that we will show during the Saturday evening talks. It would be great if everyone would look through their old Wildflower Weekend photos and pick out a few that you would like to share. If any of our longtime members have actual photos from the days before digital cameras a scan of those would be extra special.
Use the link below to access the drop folder for your images. Please include the year of the Wildflower Weekend as part of the file name (e.g. WW2010). If you have any questions, just email us at WildflowerWeekend2024@knps.org. Thanks.
This is the second consecutive year that KNPS is offering merchandise with a logo developed specifically for Wildflower Weekend. This year, in the spirit of bringing together creative expression and love for nature, the KNPS Board decided to have a Wildflower Weekend 2024 Logo Design Contest. This was an open design contest to come up with a logo for Wildflower Weekend 2024.
We put out a call to artists and graphic designers who were members of the Kentucky Native Plant Society in early December 2023. We asked the designers to submit designs that incorporated either the great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) or the stinking Benjamin, a.k.a. red trillium (T. erectum) or both. The submitted designs were then presented to the KNPS membership for voting during the month of January 2024.
We did not know what the response would be so we were thrilled when we received 11 gorgeous designs, well beyond our expectations! The members of KNPS responded in kind, surpassing our expectations as we received nearly 140 votes, by far the biggest response we have ever received for an online poll. Voting came down to a nail-biting close race, and we had to have a runoff between the top two designs. At the end of the runoff, the beautiful logo featured above came out on top as the winning entry. The design, a contemporary interpretation of the iconic Trillium species crafted into a logo with a care-free and breezy sentiment of Spring, was submitted by Rick Mullenix of London, KY (Rick’s bio is below the items) .
Editors’ Note: This article is republished with permission from the Old Oldham Era. Jakub won third place in the statewide 2023 Jim Claypool Art and Conservation Writing Contest. Jakub is a junior in high school in Oldham county.
In my home country, we didn’t see much wildlife. The occasional deer or pheasant wandering across the field adjacent to our house was enough to spark excitement in my family. In Europe, 18% of vertebrates and 24% of invertebrates are threatened with extinction, while dozens of other species have already disappeared. This massive decline was caused by hundreds of years of unsustainable land exploitation. The European Union has done its best to reverse this loss, but the damage has already been done. This was the reality that my parents and I were used to…until we moved to Kentucky. Suddenly I found myself in a place where deer are a garden nuisance, where bears surprise unsuspecting hikers, where hummingbirds dash between suburban woodlots, and where nature seems to have retained much of its wild vigor. In Kentucky, there is hope for the fantastic array of wildlife and the ecosystems they inhabit to be preserved for future generations. Although it’s too late for some, like green-blossom pearly mussels and Bachman’s warblers, it’s crucial that people take action to ensure that other species don’t go down the same path.
One of the most important ways that wildlife can be preserved is through habitat conservation. Organisms cannot survive without the place and conditions that have shaped their evolution, because their adaptations only work for those conditions. Habitat conservation is preserving certain types of habitat in order to preserve the species that depend on it. Today, many habitats in Kentucky have been degraded by pollution, mining, clearcutting, agriculture, urban sprawl, alterations to natural water flow, and invasive species. The destruction of habitat has had a widespread and noticeable impact on Kentucky. Runoff from mining operations and dam construction caused native mussels to decline rapidly. Destruction of prairies and milkweed plants crashed populations of the monarch butterfly. Invasive feral pigs outcompete turkeys and small mammals for food. This is why it’s important to conserve the remaining pieces of healthy habitat by protecting them from these threats. State and federal action has been taken to conserve habitat by setting aside areas to be protected (ex: Jefferson Memorial Forest), but in a state where 95% of the land is privately owned, the importance of landowners in habitat management cannot be understated.
Habitat conservation is essential, but it’s not enough to indefinitely support Kentucky’s wildlife. Currently, only 7% of the state is protected land. And while half of Kentucky’s land area is forested, most of these forests are small, disjunct woodlots consisting mostly of edge habitat. Edge habitat is prone to invasion by exotic species, and doesn’t provide the stable conditions required by many organisms. Furthermore, some habitats have been almost completely destroyed, such as prairies and wetlands. There simply isn’t enough of these habitats left to support the unique organisms that depend on them. That is why there needs to be habitat restoration. There are multiple ways to go about this. One of these is forming wildlife corridors. Wildlife corridors are strips of habitat that are created to join natural areas with each other. This is important because many patches of habitat in Kentucky are too small to provide enough resources for some species, and their disjointedness makes it difficult for migratory animals to travel. Linking together these bits of habitat effectively creates a web of nature that allows species to successfully forage and migrate.
Another method of habitat restoration is the restoration of natural processes. For example, fire was an essential component of Kentucky’s landscape, and maintained large tracts of prairie throughout the state. However, fire suppression by European settlers caused most of these prairies to develop into closed-canopy woodland, thereby eliminating the open grassland habitat necessary for wildlife like the elk and greater prairie chicken. Returning fire to the landscape would help restore these habitats. In Eastern Kentucky, Native Americans used fire for thousands of years to maintain grasslands and savannas, in order to support elk. When settlers arrived, they not only stopped this fire regime and let the grasslands turn to forest, but extensively hunted the elk. Unsurprisingly, elk were soon extirpated from the state. Yet, for the last twenty years, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife has been prescribe-burning land reclaimed from mining operations to support elk reintroduction. Originally, 1,500 elk were brought in from western states. Now, 10,000 elk roam the mountains of Kentucky, proving the importance of fire in habitat restoration. The discussion on habitat restoration would not be complete without mentioning native plants. Being autotrophs, native plants are the foundation of all local ecosystems, and restoring habitat often starts with restoring them. For many insects, their habitats are the native plants themselves. Take the case of the endangered monarch butterfly. Their whole life cycle revolves around a single genus of plants: the milkweeds. When milkweeds declined because of human activity, so did monarchs. When conservation agencies encouraged people to plant milkweeds, monarch population increased. This rather simple way of restoring habitat via native plants is extensively discussed by entomologist Douglas Tallamy in his book, Bringing Nature Home, and is an important strategy for supporting wildlife in suburban areas.
Although Kentucky has changed drastically since the arrival of settlers, much of the indigenous fauna has persisted to this day. However, threats to the state’s rich animal diversity have not only increased, but become more numerous with time. Wildlife conservation—through the protection and restoration of habitat, and restoration of native vegetation—is the only logical path forward. Ignorance of this matter would spell disaster not just for the animals themselves, but for Kentucky’s environment as a whole. Similarly, we cannot treat habitat management as purely the responsibility of conservation agencies, as Kentucky is almost entirely private property. It’s imperative that everyone takes steps to support wildlife conservation, whether it’s by incorporating native plants into their landscapes or advocating for the protection of wild areas. It’s our responsibility, as stewards of this state, to ensure a biodiverse and sustainable future for the next generations by preserving land and keeping it wild
Works Cited Abernathy, Greg. “A Natural Commonwealth – KNLT.” Kentucky Natural Lands Trust, 9 February 2016, https://knlt.org/a-natural-commonwealth/. Accessed 26 November 2023. “Art and Writing Contest – Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet.” Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, https://eec.ky.gov/Natural-Resources/Conservation/Pages/Art-and-Writing-Contest.aspx. Accessed 26 November 2023. Davis, Josh. “One fifth of all species in Europe threatened with extinction.” Natural History Museum, 9 November 2023, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/november/one-fifth-of-all-species-in-europethreatened-with-extinction.html. Accessed 26 November 2023. “Europe – Wildlife, Fauna, Ecosystems.” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Europe/Animal-life. Accessed 26 November 2023. “Habitat | Biodiversity, Ecosystems & Conservation.” Britannica, 9 October 2023, https://www.britannica.com/science/habitat-biology. Accessed 26 November 2023. “Improve Your Land for Wildlife – Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife.” Kentucky Fish and Wildlife, https://fw.ky.gov/Wildlife/Pages/Improve-Your-Land-for-Wildlife.aspx. Accessed 26 November 2023. Lavaty, Greg. “Greater Prairie-Chicken.” American Bird Conservancy, https://abcbirds.org/bird/greater-prairie-chicken/. Accessed 27 November 2023. Tallamy, Douglas W. Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Updated and Expanded. Timber Press, 2009. “U.S. Wildlife officials declare two Ky. native species, seven Tenn. species extinct.” WKMS, 17 October 2023, https://www.wkms.org/environment/2023-10-17/u-s-wildlife-officials-declare-two-ky-native-species-seven-tenn-species-extinct. Accessed 26 November 2023. “Wild Pig Home – Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife.” Kentucky Fish and Wildlife https://fw.ky.gov/InvasiveSpecies/Pages/Wild-Pig-Home.aspx. Accessed 26 November 2023.
Greetings, I’m Jakub Głuszek, a junior at North Oldham High School. Originally from Poland, my family and I moved to Kentucky as expats in 2015. I’ve always had a fascination with nature, which now fuels my ambition to delve deeper into ecology and botany in college. I volunteer at Ironweed Native Plant Nursery in Waddy, where I find inspiration from individuals who have turned their passion into a profession. I enjoy exploring wild areas, growing native plants, and traveling.
We have exciting news for all of our members and friends! KNPS is happy to announce this year’s Wildflower Weekend has been scheduled for April 12th-14th, 2024 at Natural Bridge State Resort Park!
But wait, there is even more cause for jubilation! This year we are celebrating 35 years of Wildflower Weekend! That’s right! Naturalists and nature lovers from all across Kentucky have been gathering in the spirit of botanical appreciation, fellowship and education at Wildflower Weekend since May 1989! We are proud to host this year’s event at Natural Bridge SRP, the original location of the very first KNPS Wildflower Weekend (scroll down to page 3).
Help Us Celebrate with Your Photos!
To help celebrate our 35 years of Wildflower Weekend, we are planning to put together a montage of photos from prior Weekends that we will show during the Saturday evening talks. It would be great if everyone would look through their old Wildflower Weekend photos and pick out a few that you would like to share. If any of our longtime members have actual photos from the days before digital cameras a scan of those would be extra special.
Use the link below to access the drop folder for your images. Please include the year of the Wildflower Weekend as part of the file name (e.g. WW2010).
Throughout its long history, Wildflower Weekend has been an enriching experience to our members and beyond; offering guided hikes to explore Kentucky’s rich natural history and resources in the Red River Gorge. We hope you will join us and other nature lovers, families, community scientists, amateur naturalists, and professional botanists from across the Commonwealth, to explore the beauty and diversity of our native plants this April.
The event will include guided hikes through beautiful natural areas throughout the weekend, a Friday Evening Friends & Members Social, and Saturday evening presentations.
Attendees will be able pre-register for both the event, as well as guided hikes. Pre-registration will be opened online several weeks before Wildflower Weekend. Members of KNPS will be allowed to register before the registration is opened to the general public.
iNaturalist BotanyBlitz Kicks Off Wildflower Weekend across Kentucky
The week prior to Wildflower Weekend, KNPS will be hosting our annual week-long, state-wide BotanyBlitz on iNaturalist from April 6th-14th. This week-long BotanyBlitz allows us to broaden our spring wildflower scope to the entire state of Kentucky and allows us to highlight natural areas across the commonwealth! If you work/volunteer at a natural area in Kentucky and would like to partner with us to host a Kick Off Hike at your site to kick off the BotanyBlitz week, please send an email to: WildflowerWeekend2024@knps.org
Be sure to visit and bookmark the Wildflower Weekend 2024 page where we will be posting updates to the event schedules. If you have any questions, just shoot an email to WildflowerWeekend2024@knps.org. Hope to see you in April.
This year, in the spirit of bringing together creative expression and love for nature, the KNPS Board decided to have a Wildflower Weekend 2024 Logo Design Contest. This was an open design contest to come up with a logo for Wildflower Weekend 2024. The logo will be used on t-shirts, hoodies, and coffee cups, as well as on all publicity about the event.
We put out a call to artists and graphic designers who were members of the Kentucky Native Plant Society in early December. We asked the designers to submit designs that incorporated either the great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) or the stinking Benjamin, a.k.a. red trillium (T. erectum) or both. These charismatic species are commonly found decorating the floors of the rich forests in the Natural Bridge/Red River Gorge area. The submitted designs were then presented to the KNPS membership for voting during the month of January.
We did not know what the response would be so we were thrilled when we received 11 gorgeous designs, well beyond our expectations! The members of KNPS responded in kind, surpassing our expectations as we received nearly 140 votes, by far the biggest response we have ever received for an online poll. Voting came down to a nail-biting close race, and we had to have a runoff between the top two designs. At the end of the runoff, the beautiful logo featured above came out on top as the winning entry. The design, a contemporary interpretation of the iconic Trillium species crafted into a logo with a care-free and breezy sentiment of Spring, was submitted by Rick Mullenix of London, KY.
Rick Mullenix, Winner
“I have been a graphic designer for 19 years, and am a new member of the KNPS. I appreciate being part of this group and look forward to learning a lot. This design was a joy to work on. It is in the style of a badge design, I felt this would work well across the different mediums it would be printed in. My goal was to evoke a breezy, spring-style feel with the colors and the layout. Even though the trilliums both had distinct parts, I loved seeing the different interpretations of them in all the submissions.”
Gallery of Wildflower Weekend 2024 Logo Entries
Any of the designs would have made a lovely logo! Each of the designs feature unique and beautiful takes on some of Kentucky’s most well-known natural areas and species. KNPS extends our thanks and appreciation for all the artists that took the time to submit their creative visions.
Take a few minutes to review the rest of the designs and learn a bit about each of the designers. As you scroll through, be sure to click or tap on the images to see them full size. The submissions are listed by the artists’ last name, and do no indicate the placement in the competition.
Madison Courtney
Madison Courtney is an artist, advocate, amateur photographer, and marketer currently serving as the Communications Director at AMI/USA. With a background in marketing and graphic design spanning six years, Madison brings creativity and strategic thinking to her current role, blending her passion for art and education. Formerly a Montessori teacher, Madison created vibrant classrooms that incorporated nature and plants, fostering a connection between her students and the natural world. She is a strong advocate for children with disabilities and serves on the founding board of LEAF (Lexington Elevating Abilities Foundation) providing financial support to children in need of services. In her personal life, Madison enjoys hiking with her husband and dog, identifying and photographing plants and fungi along the way. As a new member of the Kentucky Native Plant Society, she is excited to be part of a community that shares her enthusiasm for the native flora of Kentucky.
Barbara Degraves
Barbara DeGraves is a freelance nature artist and photographer. With over 30 years of experience, she renders her realistic art in a variety of techniques but prefers colored pencils, pastels, and ink. She exhibits her mixed media artwork and photography in various exhibits around Bowling Green, KY.
Since moving to Kentucky, she and her husband have transformed their barren treeless yard into a welcoming acre for pollinators and birds. Their yard recently achieved a “Certified Butterfly Garden” status by North American Butterfly Association. The property includes pocket prairies, bird magnet hedges and a wide variety of host perennials and shrubs to support native pollinators.
While on a hiking trip to eastern Kentucky, she photographed a patch of great white trillium and captured an image of a duskywing skipper feeding on one of the flowers. This unique image combined with her other reference photographs of trillium inspired her ink illustration for her KNPS logo submission.
Besides being a KNPS member, she is also an active member and former board member of Wild Ones SoKY. Through national Wild Ones she has won multiple awards for her native plant photography.
Cheryll Frank
Cheryll Frank has been an artist and amateur naturalist from an early age. She has a BS in Sustainable Agriculture from the University of Kentucky. Her most recent endeavor is ‘rewilding’ 10 acres in Scott County, where she lives with her husband Bruce (also an artist) and a four-legged population. Earliest efforts at creating a small Miyawaki-style forest as a hedgerow has boosted the bird population to 72 species. “I tried to evoke some of the excitement old postcards from the 1930’s promised the intrepid traveler. The diminutive trillium in a limited time engagement, contrasted with the massive edifice of Natural Bridge.”
Clarissa Geaner
Clarissa Gearner is an architectural historian from Rowan County, Kentucky. The daughter of biology educators, Clarissa grew up in the woods of Eastern Kentucky and has had a lifelong love of nature and art. She received a Master of Historic Preservation degree and Cultural Landscape Conservation certificate at the University of Georgia and wrote her thesis on proposing interpretive efforts to educate Red River Gorge visitors on the Eastern Agricultural Complex, a center of plant domestication that occurred in the Eastern United States. Through her thesis writing process, Clarissa learned a great deal about Kentucky’s native plant species and developed an even greater appreciation for them. Clarissa returned to Kentucky in 2023 and was excited to participate in the KNPS logo design contest, especially since Wildflower Weekend 2024 will be hosted at Natural Bridge State Resort Park. Her design, a gouache painting, includes both the great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) and the stinking Benjamin trillium (Trillium erectum), with a vignette of Natural Bridge.
Joy Hopkins
Joy Hopkins grew up near the Smokies in East Tennessee. Her initial loves were horses and art, and she quickly added a passion for the outdoors and all things nature. Joy received a bachelor’s degree in studio art with a minor in Appalachian studies. She has worked for over 30 years in fields of outdoor adventure and education, incorporating artwork into her projects. Joy moved to Southeast Kentucky in the spring of 2022 with her botanist husband Boyd, also a professional outdoor educator and naturalist. The two of them are daily amazed at the treasures that this trove of Kentucky reveals, from beautiful waterfalls in the Red River Gorge to exquisite wildflowers in their own backyard. They love sharing the splendor of God’s creation with others and are blessed by the opportunity to do so.
Elizabeth Mefford
My name is Elizabeth Mefford. I am a transplant to Carroll County, Kentucky via the Ohio River, originally from Switzerland County, Indiana. I am a 4-H volunteer in Natural Resources and really enjoy working with children. I recently joined KNPS, just beginning to educate myself on the wonders of native plant species. My hope is to impart what I am learning on to the next generation of plant lovers.
Nikki Nivision
Hi my name is Nikki! I’m a conservation educator with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources and there I found my passion for Kentucky’s native plant species and the role they play for our many different wildlife species. I saw this design competition as an opportunity to show my love for wildflowers through my art. I hope that you all enjoy all the different designs.
Anne Proffitt
My name is Anne H. Proffitt, a 6th generation Kentuckian living in Louisville. I’ve enjoyed a lifetime of wildflowers, birds and natural beauty from our state and share my joy through my artwork. I paint and draw free hand, focusing on the wildflowers and birds of Kentucky! When I’m not painting or at work, I appreciate the great outdoors in all-weather. One of my favorite places to be is Bernheim Forest in Nelson County. I am a Volunteer Naturalist there, helping our visitors connect more deeply with nature.
Kellene Turner
“Nostalgia, expression, culture and imagination. Artistry for everyday and extraordinary circumstances, ultimately becoming an integral part of our existence. “ -Kellene Turner Art
Being a muralist and fine artist I get to capture lifestyle, culture, history and an audience sometimes with or without intention. When I am not working in the studio you can find me on the water or in the wilderness studying nature. Creating is truly raw and a personal experience and the ability to share this process with others brings me great joy.
Volunteers planting the pollinator garden at EKU’s Science for Sustainable Living Initiative
The Kentucky Native Plant Society (KNPS) is thrilled to announce the continuation of its Native Plant Pollinator Garden Grant, following a successful pilot phase last year. In its initial year, six grants of $500 each were awarded, marking a significant step towards promoting biodiversity and environmental education.
Our mission is to encourage people to establish pollinator gardens. They don’t have to be huge or even aesthetically beautiful for our purposes. They simply need to exist where humans can see them, commune with them, and learn about them.
The grant’s objective
The grant aims to foster the establishment of native plant pollinator gardens, emphasizing not only the ecological benefits but also the educational enrichment they provide. Through these gardens, KNPS seeks to nurture a deeper understanding and appreciation of native plant species and their crucial role in pollination.
This unique initiative partners with organizations that share an educational mission for two reasons:
Pollinator gardens often fail. They have plenty of people willing to help, but the organization often lacks the expertise to establish and maintain a successful garden.
We hope that these gardens will ‘put the bee in the bonnet’ of visitors. If only a few visitors go home and plant a few native plants for pollinator support, we all win.
These gardens can serve as vital educational tools, offering firsthand learning opportunities about pollination, plant species, and ecosystem health for our native plants.
Grant details
Details can be found on the application form, but in a nutshell, if you have a group of volunteers and a site that’s open to the public, within reason, or you plan to use the garden for educational purposes, and you have an educational partner, you qualify. If you don’t have an educational partner, we encourage you to apply because we can help you find someone.
To apply for a grant, follow this link to the KNPS Grants page. There you will find more details about the grant and a form to apply. But hurry, funds are limited. It doesn’t matter to us if you plant immediately or this fall, only that you plant in 2024. If you have any questions, email us at Grants@knps.org
