“Appalachian Xeriscaping: Landscaping Ideas for Water Efficient Gardens” will be presented at 10:30 a.m.-Noon on Saturday, April 5 at the Weaverville Library.

The presentation features a slide lecture by Randy Burroughs, Landscape Architect & Naturalist, and a walk through the Main Street Nature Park.

The focus of this talk will be useful ways for homeowners to have healthy attractive gardens in a time of low rainfall. We’ll discuss plants, garden planning, soil ammendments, water catchments systems, and things you can do to make a lower maintenance, more entertaining garden.

In the park we’ll see how nature sorts out plants into communities and what you can learn about the place you live from reading these patterns.

The talk should last about an hour, with the Main Street Nature Park walk until Noon. This event is provided by the Weaverville Tree Board.

The Weaverville Library is located at 41 North Main Street. The talk will take place in the Program Room.

A Volunteer Workday will be held at Main Street Nature Park beginning at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 15.  The goal is to save the great white oak which has overlooked the town for centuries but is now in competition for rainfall from invasive exotic plants and young saplings. 

Volunteers will help cut and pull the English Ivy from the old tree and clear its root zone of the heavy undergrowth, giving it a better chance at another 100 years.  Volunteers should meet in the lower Town Hall parking lot.  Wear jeans and sensible shoes, and bring work gloves, your favorite pruners, and a bottle of water.  Participants automatically become members of the Weaverville Weed Team and will receive a commemorative color group photo with the spruced up tree if name and address are provided.

This community activity is sponsored by the Weaverville Tree Board, the Weaverville Garden Club, the Weaverville Weed Team, and Quality Forward.  In case of rain, the workday will be held one week later, on Saturday, March 22.

The Weaverville Tree Board is putting on a “Workday in the Park” 10 a.m. Saturday, October 27, in the Main Street Nature Park behind Weaverville Town Hall.

The park’s landscape architect, Randy Burroughs, will be on hand to do some training on seed collecting, sowing a wildflower meadow, and cut-and-paint shrub removal. Volunteers will need pruners and lopping shears for the invasive plants, and shovels and mattock for tree planting. A pruning saw or two will be needed to disentangle a shingle oak. Volunteers will also need work gloves, sturdy shoes, and a water bottle.

For additional information call 645-3912.

Reems Creek Valley Nursery, in conjunction with the Weaverville Tree Board and Weaverville’s new Community Wildlife Habitat Project, are sponsoring the presentation “Creating Habitats for Wildlife” at 2 p.m. Saturday, October 13 at Reems Creek Valley Nursery.

Dr. Alicia Hulse, wildlife ecologist and conservation biologist, will describe how to create a backyard habitat for small nature wildlife species - including butterflies and birds - with an emphasis on native plants which provide food, cover, and places to raise young.

The presentation is free, but you are asked to pre-register by calling 645-3937.

Reems Creek Valley Nursery is located at 70 Monticello Road.