FOSL’s How We Live: Then & Now: Conservation and Gardening with Native Plants by Joy Grissom, Director and Co-founder of the Native Plant Rescue Squad

Traveling down our county’s roads are you saddened by the scene around you? Bulldozers toppling trees, pasture land being cleared for new housing and businesses. Do you wonder what’s being lost to all this development? One doesn’t have to be against development to bemoan the certain loss of native flora and habitat.

One group that’s doing more than moaning is the Native Plant Rescue Squad. Based at the Knoxville Botanical Gardens and Arboretum on Wimpole Street, the non-profit organization takes an innovative approach to the growing conservation movement. They educate about, advocate for, and conduct the rescue of native plants.

Joy Grissom, one of the co-founders of of the Native Plant Rescue Squad (NPRS), will be at the Williams Family Seymour Branch Library on Tuesday, April 16 at 7:00 to tell how to get involved in saving native plants as well as introducing them into your own landscaping.

Grissom explains how the group carries out its mission: “We work with entities such as builders, developers, or landowners to rescue native plants that would otherwise  be destroyed during clearing, building or development.The rescued plants are then made available for educational opportunities or restoration projects.” A restoration project can be as small as residents’ own landscaping.

The second 2024 presentation in the “How We Live: Then and Now” series provided by the Seymour Friends of the Library (FOSL), this program will provide practical ways for helping restore the ecological health of this beautiful area.

Lynne Davis, a Seymour resident and volunteer with the NPRS, says “I feel good when I save individual plants that would have been destroyed. I am learning about the great biodiversity in our area while saving plants that can have a new life around someone’s home or business”

Information on the availability of native plants for sale by the NPRS will be provided at the Tuesday night program in the Community Room of the Williams Family Seymour Branch Library located at 137 W Macon Lane in Seymour.

For more information, text Colleen Shannon at (865)406-5233.