Dallas Organic Garden Club Meeting: Wildscape Your Yard

Over 86% of Texans live in urban areas, and these can be a virtual wasteland for wildlife. Texas Wildscapes is a program run by Texas Parks and Wildlife to help change that. What's a wildscape? A wildscape is deliberate landscaping to provide wildlife with the essentials they need to survive: food, water, shelter, and space, and native Texas plants are needed to achieve these, because they evolved with them and know how to use them. In this presentation with Master Gardener Stephanie Suesan Smith, you'll learn what you need to know to turn your yard into a wildscape. FREE.

Stephanie Suesan Smith's father always had a garden and when she was seven, she pestered him into letting her “help” plant the onions in the garden. Planting piqued her interest, and she has been gardening ever since! Stephanie is particularly interested in vegetables, fruit, berries, nuts and herbs. Originally a master gardener in Hunt County beginning in 2001, Stephanie moved to Dallas County in late 2017 and affiliated with the Dallas County Master Gardeners. She speaks on preparing a vegetable garden from the ground up, native pollinators, African violets, integrated pest management, replacing trees and shrubs with native plants, and composting.

CERTIFICATIONS

TEXAS MASTER GARDENER, Dallas County

Entomology Specialist

Vegetable Specialist

RECOGNITION & AWARDS for volunteer work:

Master Gardener of the Year in 2015 (Hunt County)

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in Psychology, Texas A&M College Station 1995

M.S. in Psychology, Texas A&M University College Station 1989

B.S. in Psychology, Texas Christian University 1986

The Greater Dallas Organic Gardening Club meets Jan-Sep in our Classroom.

For more information, see www.gdogc.org or gdogc on Facebook.

RESCHEDULED FROM AUGUST 2024.

The Greater Dallas Organic Garden Club invites you to attend our meeting on Sunday, when our speaker will be Dallas County Extension Agent for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Matt Orwat. Matt will be giving us a presentation covering biocontrol with pesticides as well as beneficial insects and the use of banker plants.

Our regular meeting starts at 2:30 and our program begins at 3:00pm. Please join us! Our meetings are always free and open to the public. Bring a friend! To join and take advantage of our member only activities go The Greater Dallas Organic Gardening Club meets Jan-Sep in our Classroom. For more information, see

NOTE: THIS EVENT IS INDOORS IN OUR CLASSROOM.

Matthew Orwat is from Fort Worth, and earned his bachelor’s at the University of Texas at Arlington and his master’s in horticulture at Texas A&M. He worked with the rose breeding and genetics program and was a teaching assistant. He completed an internship with AgriLife Extension in Tarrant and Denton counties before starting his career as an Extension agent with the University of Florida IFAS Extension in Washington County. Growing fruit trees and vegetables with his father and helping his grandfather in his orchard and pecan grove helped him develop a love for growing vegetables, fruits and roses. Orwat said there are many untapped niche markets for small farms in urban areas, and he aims to help enterprising agricultural entrepreneurs find those and develop sustainable urban crop production through the outreach of AgriLife Extension.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

North Haven Gardens, 7700 Northaven Road, Dallas, United States