September 2024 Monthly Meeting — Rita Venable

| Monthly Meeting

Note: This meeting will be on the fifth Monday of the month, September 30, rather than on our usual fourth Monday. This is to prevent conflict with Joanna Brichetto’s book event at Parnassus Books on September 23.

Our speaker for the September 2024 meeting is Rita Venable who will speak on

A Home for Butterflies

Presentation: What kind of real estate do butterflies look for when choosing a home? Do they like what they see, smell and taste at your garden or do they turn up their antennae and look elsewhere? This presentation will focus on what butterflies need and how to plan your garden space. It will  include a list of top nectaring plants for Tennessee butterflies. Also, we will discuss hostplants­ — including trees — for butterflies. We’ll go over some practical solutions for the “new normal” of butterfly gardening.  There will be a question period at the end and resources for further study will be shared.

Bio: Rita is a noted writer, speaker, photographer, and consultant whose much-loved subjects are pollinators and gardening with native plants. She is the author of Butterflies of Tennessee (Maywood Publishing). In addition to this very popular field guide, Rita has published numerous articles and photographs in literary publications, newspapers, and magazines. She is a former editor of Butterfly Gardener, a publication of the North American Butterfly Association.

For additional information about Rita’s background, please visit this webpage.

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Great Spangled Fritillary on Butterfly Milkweed
Great Spangled Fritillary on Butterfly Milkweed, credit: Richard Hitt