Connecting with Nature

A Wildflower Symposium 25 Years in the Making

You can now view the complete schedule by downloading a brochure. Register by mail or Register online .

The Wintergreen Nature Foundation’s favorite ritual of spring is celebrating its 25th year. As the days lengthen and the temperatures warm, an advancing green line of spring creeps up the mountain. Every woodland ravine becomes a colorful tapestry as violets, orchids, and lilies raise their faces to embrace the spring sunlight. Colorful wood warblers are busy as they flit through the infant foliage, their arrival perfectly timed with the caterpillar hatch. While we seldom associate instinctive behavior with wildflowers, there is clearly an evolved “behavioral” response to the passage of spring as they must bloom, attract a pollinator and set seed before the new canopy closes in. In perspective, while our ritual of celebration is twenty-five years young, their ritual is likely four thousand years old.

Placed into the setting of nature’s most ancient and beautiful natural gardens, the 25th annual Spring Wildflower Symposium is a celebration of learning as we look at the science related to these incredible ecosystems. This year’s symposium will include programs such as:

• Old Growth Forests of North America: Dr Dennis Whigham, Smithsonian Environmental Research Scientist, will place our Blue Ridge forests in perspective.
• A Warming World: Jeff Halverson, Climatologist and Professor, will discuss the impact of climate change.
• Ecology for Gardners: Dr Ed Clebsch, Professor of Botany, and his wife, Meredith, will lecture and lead walks from a gardener’s perspective.
• Mammals of the Southern Appalachians: Dr. Mike Pelton, Wildlife Biologist, shares the secret lives of many wildlife species.

Over 50 programs will occur including hikes to see and identify native wildflowers, ferns, trees and shrubs in their natural ecosystems. Birding will be fabulous as we get once-a-year sightings of tiny, colorful wood warblers and other birds of spring. Learn about the birth of the Blue Ridge with geologist Lorrie Coiner. Visit with herbalist Susan Belsinger as she teaches about medicinal and edible plants.
From veteran enthusiast to rank beginner one cannot help but be inspired by seeing first hand nature’s prehistoric design in our mountains and woodlands. It teaches us by example that all things in nature are connected, including us.