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Ann Arbor Chapter |
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Ann Arbor Chapter |
The Ann Arbor Chapter of Wild Ones was formed in 1996 and is over 100 members. Our members are primarily from Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, but also from Livingston, western Wayne, and other neighboring counties.
Calendar | Projects | Membership | Email list | Officers | Committee Chairpersons
Calendar |
Jul 08, 2009 (Wed) Sustainability Safari - a walking tour of sustainable techniques in Ann Arbor
When: Wednesday, July 8th 6:45-8:45
What: A walking tour. Distance is about 1.5 miles over sidewalks, and some lawn.
Meet: at the Cobblestone Farm parking lot at Buhr Park. Buhr Park is located at 2781 Packard Road in southeast Ann Arbor.
Why: Get inspired! Hear the experts and see sustainable techniques in action.
Join the Wild Ones for a walking tour of GREEN land use in action. Visit sites that clean stormwater, capture rainwater, capture the suns rays, cool the building, and grow flowers on the roof.
The designers of these improvements will be on hand to give us insights into the methods used. Highlighting: Patrick Judd, Conservation Design Forum, Shannan Gibb-Randall of InSite Design, and a "Super Swamper" of the Children's Wet Meadow.
The walk is free and open to the public. Children are welcome. The route is ADA accessible.
Meeting Place: Buhr Park - meet at the parking lot behind Cobblestone Farm.
Buhr Park is served by The Ride (AATA). Route 7 stops at the Packard entrance. Please visit the Ride for maps and schedules. Parking is limited and gas is expensive. Consider walking, biking, or car-pooling to this event.
Included sites will be:
1. The Buhr Park Children's Wet Meadow, one of the first of its kind, was established by children in 1997 in one of the most forward-looking attempts at handling stormwater as a resource instead of a waste product. The Buhr Park Children's Wet Meadow is a group of wet meadow ecosystems in Ann Arbor's Buhr Park. The wet meadows provide a habitat for native plants and animals, an attractive educational site for children, neighbors and other visitors, and an environmental filter for stormwater runoff from the park grounds. A "Super Swamper" student will be guiding us through.
2. Easy Street. Easy Street is a pilot project in permeable paving and traffic calming now, but it wasn't always this way. Easy Street had a history of flooding basements; bad drainage and degrading pavement. The street had no sidewalk, and children walked home from school in the street in the dark in the wintertime. Now, through neighborhood consensus, a new sidewalk runs up one side of the street, rainwater gardens and permeable pavers promote stormwater infiltration, and the traffic is slowed with a traffic calming circle and visually, the narrow drive lane flanked by porous pavement. Patrick Judd, part of the original design team which included Pollack Design and Stantec, and now of Conservation Design Forum, will be on hand to guide us through the street improvements and interpret the green features.
3. Malletts Creek Library. Opened in January 2004, the Malletts Creek Branch is a unique model of sustainable design featuring solar heating, natural day lighting, a vegetated green roof, convection cooling, naturally captured and filtered storm water, native plants and grasses, and many uses of materials that are renewable resources. The Malletts Creek Branch was awarded the 2005 American Institute of Architects Michigan (AIA Michigan) Award for Sustainable Design. Shannan Gibb-Randall, part of the original design team at InSite Design, will be on hand to interpret the forward-thinking and functional landscape.
4. Mary Beth Doyle Park. (formerly Brown Park) the newly-created Wetland Preserve is designed to reduce flooding and improve water quality within Malletts Creek and provides opportunities for wildlife viewing throughout the year. The wetland project was a cooperative effort between the Washtenaw County Drain commissioner, the City of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield Township, and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. The goals of the preserve include reducing one-third of the phosphorus input from Malletts Creek to the Huron River. Patrick Judd, part of the original design team, and now of Conservation Design Forum, will be on hand to guide us through the landscape and interpret the features that make the water quality improvements possible.
Aug 01, 2009 (Sat)
Carpool to Wild Ones national board meeting at Mott Community College in Flint
Aug 12, 2009 (Wed)
Beautify your Home Landscape with Native Plants: a City Garden Tour
When: 6:45 PM
What: A visit to an extraordinary home landscape in Ann Arbor.
Where: 12 Geddes Heights, near the Arboretum's Geddes entrance.
If you think that native plantings are too relaxed or downright messy for your urban landscape, think again! Join us a s designer Mike Appel helps us see how "high end" and "natives" complement each other. This contemporary home and garden will be looking good with August color. It's sure to inspire the novice and the expert gardener.
Parking is limited at this location. Car-pooling is fun and saves gas. Street parking on Oxford and Unviversity Ave. is the closest option.
Free and open to the public.
Please leave pets at home
The Ann Arbor Chapter occasionally sponsors special one-time or long-term projects. Meetings and workdays for these projects are separate from the monthly chapter meetings.
This long-term project was begun in 2001 and is a joint effort with the University of Michigan Nichols Arboretum. The garden aims to represent a habitat similar to the one that was most common in the Ann Arbor area before settlement by Europeans: open, grassy places with a few widely spaced trees. Meetings and workdays for the garden are held throughout most of the year. For more information, please contact Rick Meader.
To become a member of the Ann Arbor Chapter, please print out a membership application, fill in the requested information, and send the application and your check to:
Karen Lowry, Treasurer
Wild Ones Ann Arbor Chapter
11606 Centennial Drive
Whitmore Lake, MI 48189-9755
As a member, you will receive the following publications:
After becoming a member, please consider joining a committee or serving as an officer. Also consider joining the email list to receive announcements and information regarding Wild Ones and natural landscaping.
The Ann Arbor Chapter of Wild Ones sponsors an email list. Anyone may subscribe to the list, but only subscribers may send email to the list. A copy of each message is automatically forwarded to all subscribers.
The list is primarily for announcements, questions, and information of interest to native plant gardeners in the southern Michigan area. Please help us keep this focus. Traffic averages about 5-10 messages per month.
To subscribe to the Ann Arbor Chapter’s email list, go to the list's web interface, click on the button labeled, "Join wild.ones," fill in your email address and name, and click on the "Save" button.
To send a message to the list, address your email to wild.ones@umich.edu.
To unsubscribe from the list, send an email to wild.ones-request@umich.edu, with the word UNSUBSCRIBE as the SUBJECT of the message. Leave the body of the email blank.
To change your personal settings for the list, go to the list’s web interface.
To contact the list administrator, send email to wild.ones-owner@listserver.itd.umich.edu.
For more information, see the standard list welcome message. You can print out the page for reference.
Officers are responsible for the operation of the Ann Arbor Chapter. Each fall, a nominating committee identifies and contacts potential candidates to serve as officers for the following calendar year. Nominations are made in October, and an informal election is held at the November meeting.
President: Oversees the direction of the chapter events, acts as primary “external” contact person, and coordinates with the national organization.
Susan Bryan, (734) 622-9997, susanbryanhsieh@yahoo.com
Vice President: Assists president with duties and provides direction for programs.
Mary James (734) 936-3261, mljames@umich.edu
Secretary: Documents meetings.
Treasurer: Oversees budget and fundraising.
Karen Lowry, (810) 231-9221, karen@kingbird.org
Committee chairpersons are responsible for planning and organizing most of the activities and projects of the chapter. Chairpersons join the officers in meetings (approximately monthly) to guide the group and prepare for events. This steering committee gives more people access to the organizational aspects of the group and its long-term direction.
Program Chair. Identifies and selects meeting topics, assists with contacting guest speakers, sends meeting announcements to the email list, and coordinates related events.
Publicity Chair. Submits meeting announcements to local newspapers, identifies events in which Wild Ones should participate, and seeks out other opportunities for publicizing the group.
Membership Chair. Identifies methods to increase membership, contacts lapsed members to encourage them to renew, and maintains meeting-attendance records, membership database, and email list.
Rescue Chair. Coordinates plant rescue efforts between the local chapter
and landowners.
Exhibit Coordinator. Maintains the Ann Arbor Wild Ones tabletop display and serves as the contact person for presentations by our local chapter.
Webmaster. Updates meeting information as it becomes available throughout the year. Updates officer and chairperson information annually.
Nominating Chair. Identifies and contacts potential candidates for officer and chairperson positions. The Nominating Chair operates from August through October of each year and is appointed by the president.
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