This is the second consecutive year that KNPS is offering merchandise with a logo developed specifically for Wildflower Weekend. This year, in the spirit of bringing together creative expression and love for nature, the KNPS Board decided to have a Wildflower Weekend 2024 Logo Design Contest. This was an open design contest to come up with a logo for Wildflower Weekend 2024.

We put out a call to artists and graphic designers who were members of the Kentucky Native Plant Society in early December 2023. We asked the designers to submit designs that incorporated either the great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) or the stinking Benjamin, a.k.a. red trillium (T. erectum) or both. The submitted designs were then presented to the KNPS membership for voting during the month of January 2024.

We did not know what the response would be so we were thrilled when we received 11 gorgeous designs, well beyond our expectations! The members of KNPS responded in kind, surpassing our expectations as we received nearly 140 votes, by far the biggest response we have ever received for an online poll. Voting came down to a nail-biting close race, and we had to have a runoff between the top two designs. At the end of the runoff, the beautiful logo featured above came out on top as the winning entry. The design, a contemporary interpretation of the iconic Trillium species crafted into a logo with a care-free and breezy sentiment of Spring, was submitted by Rick Mullenix of London, KY (Rick’s bio is below the items) .

By Deb White 

For many years, beautiful wood carvings of native plants have been specially made by Bob Van Hoff as a fundraiser during KPNS Wildflower Weekend. Bob says he has been carving since he was about 11 years old and got serious about carving, mostly fish and birds, in 1970. He’s made carvings of over 299 species of birds! Some of his larger fish works, like musky and gar, were made for visitor centers. 

Bob worked as a biologist and ranger for the Army Corps of Engineers and assisted with state plant conservation efforts. He worked to establish populations of Eggert’s sunflower (Helianthus eggertii), once a threatened plant listed at both the state and federal levels, around Nolin Lake. He notes that one transplant in his yard has become about 2,000 stems over the last 20 years, a project Tom Barnes (renowned UK plant biologist who inspired conservation projects all over Kentucky) encouraged. He also worked with Tom to establish prairie at Barren River Lake and Salamone Lake in Indiana.  

We thank Bob for creating this wood carving for KNPS and look forward to seeing what he creates for Wildflower Weekend this year!   

If you are an artist or graphic designer we would love for you to consider entering the Wildflower Weekend 2024 Logo Design Contest. This is an open design contest to come up with a logo for Wildflower Weekend 2024 (April 12-14 at Natural Bridge SRP). The logo will be used on t-shirts, hoodies, and coffee cups, as well as on all publicity about the event. The submitted designs will be presented to the KNPS membership for voting and the winner will be awarded $200 and be recognized on the KNPS website.

In June of 2022, a KNPS member posted the image on the right on the KNPS Facebook group page of a t-shirt she had found in a thrift store. Asking among several longtime members, it turns out that in the 1990s, and into the early 2000’s, KNPS produced t-shirts for each Wildflower Weekend. Last year the KNPS Board decided to bring back this great tradition for Wildflower Weekend 2023.

In early 2023, we began the process of creating a logo by presenting our members and friends with a slideshow of 13 native species and asking them to select their top three choices. The yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum) was the narrow winner. The Board then asked KNPS member Kendall MacDonald to design a logo for the 2023 Wildflower Weekend. The beautiful image she created featured the yellow trout lily with Cumberland Falls as the background. The image was used in all publicity for the event and was also featured on an adult t-shirt, a coffee mug, a kid’s t-shirt, and an adult hoodie that were available for sale in our KNPS Gear Shop.

The star of the logo will be the native plant. Although the yellow trout lily was the plant that was first choice by a majority of those voting last year, the Trillium genus received almost as many votes and will be the flower to be featured on this year’s logo. Two species of Trillium received the same number of votes; the great white trillium (T. grandiflorum) and stinking Benjamin, a.k.a. red trillium (T. erectum). Both species are commonly found in the Natural Bridge/Red River Gorge area. Artists can choose to use either species or both in their design.