Monthly Meeting and Lecture
Monthly MEETING and LECTURE: “Native Plants & Wildlife: The Case for Local Stewardship of the Planet” with Susan Lerner, Director of Horticulture at the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach
Date and Time
July 9, 7:00 p.m. meeting & lecture.
Light refreshments at 6:30 p.m.
Rooms 101 and 102 at FAU Pine Jog Environmental Education Center, 6301 Summit Blvd, (near Jog Road) in West Palm Beach. Meeting is free and open to the public.
Program Overview
Susan Lerner is the Director of Horticulture at the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach and is responsible for the management of Pan’s Garden, the grounds around the Preservation Foundation building, and Earl E.T. Smith Park, located directly west of Palm Beach Town Hall. Also, she teaches garden education programs to children and arranges education programs for adults. She tells us that “the design of Pan’s Garden incorporates wetlands and uplands which shelter hundreds of species of native plants. Visitors to the garden can get a sense of what Palm Beach might have looked like before settlers of European descent arrived.”
She is a Florida Master Gardener, Secretary of the Backyard Beekeepers Association, and Past President of the Palm Beach County Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society and the Palm Beach Chapter of the Rare Fruit Council International. Her half-acre West Palm Beach yard is planted with hundreds of Florida native plants, over two dozen trees and other edibles – enough to keep her, the bees, birds, and butterflies fed year-round.
Susan will talk about the relationship between native plants and the food webs they support and how landscaping with native plants is the key to sustainability. Almost every food web begins with a plant and something that depends upon it as a food source. Most often that something is an insect. Native insects eat native plants. Unfortunately, most plants used in Florida for landscaping are from other countries, and they are not edible to most native insects.
Susan says, “Native plants have been sidelined to sometimes-protected patches of land scattered across the state to make way for a growing population of humans in Florida. Landscaping our homes, businesses, highways and schools with native plants can help rebuild and protect fragile food webs.”
More Meeting Information
Meeting and program is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for light refreshments, in rooms 101 and 102 at FAU Pine Jog Environmental Education Center, 6301 Summit Blvd (near Jog Road) in West Palm Beach. We look forward to seeing you there!
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