Since 2023, Kentucky Native Plant Society has been awarding five grants of $500 per year to foster the establishment of native plant pollinator gardens, emphasizing not only the ecological benefits but also the educational enrichment they provide. Through these gardens, KNPS seeks to nurture a deeper understanding and appreciation of native plant species and their crucial role in pollination.
In 2025, we were thrilled to receive nearly 30 worthy applications for this $500 garden grant. Picking only five was difficult for the committee: David Taylor, Rachel Cook, Kelly Watson, and Susan Harkins. You can see all five of this year’s grant winners here, KNPS 2025 Pollinator Garden Grant Winners!
One of this year’s winners was Wright Elementary School, in Shelbyville. Their new garden is a second-grade project, but will be used by the entire school for many academic endeavors. They have big plans for this garden’s future, including an irrigation system, benches, and even a picnic area.
We recently received this update about their garden and the images from Amanda Nett, a Second Grade teacher at Wright Elementary.
With the grant we received we were able to fill 2 large and 2 medium garden beds with native plants. Our students were able to plant them, care for them and learned why native plants are so important to Kentucky. We focused a lot on pollinators and how the native plants we selected can help pollinators. We cannot begin to thank you for the grant money. It was such a wonderful gift and really furthered our students’ learning and appreciation of native plants! I’m sending several pictures of the kids preparing the beds, the whole group and after we added the native plant beds. Many of the plants are blooming now, and we can’t wait to see how much it grows in the upcoming years!
Where: Fairdale Public Library, 10620 West Manslick Road, Fairdale, KY 40118 When: Wednesday, 23rd July, 6-7:30 pm
by Julian Campbell and Josh Wysor
Purple fringeless orchid (Platanthera peramoena)
Interested people are invited to this presentation and discussion at Fairdale Public Library on Wednesday, 23rd July, 6-7:30 pm EDT presented by Julian Campbell and Josh Wysor. “The Wet Woods, Salt Licks and Purple Orchids of Fabulous Fairdale“.
What is the Natural History of Fairdale–which emerged from the notorious “Wet Woods” of southern Jefferson County? How has this local ecology affected the human history and economy of this region since Virginian settlement? Where are best remnants of the original landscape, together with native flora and fauna? Can the community aim to conserve or restore such sites in an organized fashion? Can we assemble material for an interesting educational booklet (or website) that could be used to guide field trips and management? This presentation will address these questions, illustrated with old maps and current photographs. We hope to discuss mutual interests with the community, and to suggest ways forward. Much relevant information is available but there does not yet appear to be a definite plan for harmonious balance of development and conservation
The Lady Slipper newsletter, and now blog, of the Kentucky Native Plant Society has been published since the Society’s founding in 1986. We occasionally feature an article from a past issue. In this article from 2010, the late Tom Barnes, wildflower photographer and former president of Kentucky, takes an in-depth look at the gentians (Gentianaceae family) . This article ran in Vol. 25, No. 4. If you would like to see these and other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 39, 2024, can be found.
Gentians: All Fall Color is Not Red, Yellow and Orange
Thomas G. Barnes, Ph.D. Extension Wildlife Specialist, Department of Forestry, University of Kentucky
Gentianopsis crinita by Tom Barnes
Fall is the time of the year when the leaf peepers begin their road trips across the Commonwealth in search of reds, yellows, oranges, and other colors in the tree canopy. For wildflower enthusiasts it is a time of the year when they think of other activities since the goldenrods and asters are done flowering and the drabness of winter is quickly approaching. For those who do love searching for unique wildflowers, like so many do for our native orchids, this is the time of the year to search for fall flowering members of the gentian family, those that typically have beautiful blue flowers. When you think of the rarity of the native orchids found in Kentucky, approximately 38% are listed as rare, special concern, threatened or endangered. Of the fall gentians, 68% fall in those same categories. So if looking for rare plants is your venue, then the fall gentians are an excellent group to focus on. I hope to share with you some information about gentians in general and then which species can be found in Kentucky.
On Friday, April 11th and Saturday, April 12, nearly 200 members and friends enjoyed KNPS’s Wildflower Weekend, at Carter Caves SRP! With 20 hikes, workshops, poster sessions, and kid’s activities and with many of the best botanists in Kentucky in attendance, Wildflower Weekend 2025 was an unqualified success.
Wildflower Weekend 2025 Logo Contest
This is the third consecutive year that KNPS offered merchandise with a unique logo developed specifically for Wildflower Weekend via the Wildflower Weekend 2025 Logo Design Contest. This was an open design contest to come up with a logo for Wildflower Weekend 2025. The winning design (featured at the top left of this post) is a collage of violets; the rare Three-parted Violet (Viola tripartita) accompanied by the Long-spurred Violet (Viola rostrata) and the Marsh Blue Violet (Viola cucullata). The winning design was submitted by Cheryll Frank of Scott County, KY.
Adult monarch (Danaus plexippus) feeding on rose milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
Over the last several years, we have seen an explosion of interest in the growing of native milkweed plants (Asclepias genus), largely driven by the plight of the iconic monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). As most of us are aware, monarch caterpillars only host on milkweeds. Without milkweed leaves to feed on, monarch caterpillars cannot not survive.
Asclepias is a genus of herbaceous, perennial, flowering plants known as milkweeds, named for their latex, a milky substance containing cardiac glycosides termed cardenolides, exuded where cells are damaged. Most species are toxic to humans and many other species, primarily due to the presence of cardenolides.
This post was written in 2024. Pollinator week this year is June 16-22, 2025. Learn more about Pollinator Week 2025, visit the Pollinator Week website.
June 20th-26th 16th – 22nd is National Pollinator Week, an annual internationally celebrated event to educate, support and celebrate all things pollinator conservation. As plant enthusiasts, we have an appreciation and respect for pollinators’ complex and fascinating relationship to plant reproduction. The most well-known pollinator is probably the Monarch Butterfly, which has been reared by school children for decades in lessons about the butterfly life cycle. The monarch has captured the wonder of the public with its spectacular migration, with millions of monarchs traveling up to 3,000 miles to central Mexico and the California coast to overwinter annually.
The Lady Slipper newsletter, and now blog, of the Kentucky Native Plant Society has been published since the Society’s founding in 1986. We occasionally feature an article from a past issue. In this article from 2005, Robert Paratley, Curator, University of Kentucky Herbarium, takes an in-depth look at the dogbane family, Apocynaceae. This article ran in Vol. 20, No. 1. If you would like to see these and other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 39, 2024, can be found.
The world of the dogbane family Apocynaceae
Robert Paratley Curator, University of Kentucky Herbarium
Apocynum cannabinum – photo Amy McIntosh
Indian-hemp or dogbane, Apocynum cannabinum, is a tall, branching perennial found in most parts of Kentucky. It is very common in old fields, roadsides and other disturbed habitats, but is not particularly conspicuous in flower, with small greenish-white flowers whose petals are fused into a small urns hape. Indian-hemp is more conspicuous in fruit, where the two parts of the pistil separate at maturity and elongate into narrow, dark, long-pointed follicles (pods). These are filled with numerous light, tufted seeds adapted to catch the wind, making it an effective seed disperser. Break the plant and the sap is milky white. Another species, the spreading dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium), is similar but smaller than Indian-hemp and is widespread in northern U.S. It is listed as rare in Kentucky. Both species are on any serious list of poisonous plants. Numerous cases of livestock poisoning have been recorded, although apparently no human cases are known. (Turner and Szczawinski, 1991).
Both are members of the Apocynaceae, a large, mostly tropical family of mostly woody members. This article will highlight the features of this complex, diverse family that barely gets a toehold in the temperate zone. The Latin genus name Apocynum was coined by Linnaeus. He combined two Greek roots, apo meaning “away” or “off”, and cyn meaning “dog” – a dog repellent. The common name echoes this idea. (Perhaps dogs found the scent of the European dogbane Apocynum venetum unpleasant and kept away from it.) Apocynum became the namesake genus for the family Apocynaceae, whose name is credited to the French botanist Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu in the early 1800s. Until recently, the concept of the family remained fairly consistent, including about 200 genera and 2,000 species (Cronquist, 1981). Recent research has expanded the concept of the family to include the milkweeds, which have traditionally been taught as a distinct but closely related family. Following older fashion, I will not discuss milkweeds here.
