The Tucson chapter holds meetings between September and May each year, with a summer break. We meet on the second Thursday of each month at 7:00 pm. We hold “hybrid” meetings, where we meet both in person and also on Zoom. The live meetings will be in the ENR2 (Environment and Natural Resources 2) building at the University of Arizona, located on 6th street near Park. We meet in Room S215. Parking is available in the 6th St parking garage adjacent to ENR2. A credit card is required to pay for garage parking. If you are not on our mailing list and wish to attend one of our meetings on Zoom, email us at NativePlantsTucson@gmail.com to request the Zoom link. Videos of past meetings can be found on our YouTube channel.
JOIN OUR CHAPTER E-LIST
Join Our Chapter E-list: If you would like to receive announcements about field trips and meetings via e-mail, send a note to the Tucson Chapter email to be added to the list. Stay informed by joining us on Facebook.
Usually, the most up-to-date information about upcoming chapter events can be found on our Facebook page.
Caring for agave and baby cacti? Consider volunteer opportunities at the Pima County Native Plant Nursery! Located at 5845 N. Camino de la Tierra, the Pima County Native Plant Nursery grows native plants for public projects and is looking for volunteers to help with weeding, watering and propagation. The nursery is open Monday to Friday 7:00am to 3:30 pm. Email Amy for available times/days and details. Plant salvage at Cortaro Farms from Camino Del Oeste to Thornydate prior to road improvement project.
Chapter News
Tucson Chapter Meeting – October 9, 2025
Posted on Oct 04, 2025
Arizona’s Night Shift: Bats as Ecological Heroes
Presented by Susan Chappel, Kartchner Caverns State Parks
Thursday, October 9, 2025
Meeting and Presentation, 7pm in person and on Zoom (link below)
U of A campus, Environment and Natural Resources Building (ENR2), Room S225, 1064 E. Lowell Street, Tucson AZ
Susan Chappel will introduce us to the hidden lives of Arizona bats and the essential roles they play in our environment, as predators and natural pest control agents and as pollinating superstars for a variety of native plant species. Bat populations are under threat from a spectrum of challenges, and our speaker will discuss actions we can take to assist our flying mammalian neighbors.
Susan Chappel is a ranger with Arizona State Parks and Trails at Kartchner Caverns. She leads cave tours and participates in outreach at this amazing State Park. In the summer, when the Karchner Big Room closes to protect its breeding bat colonies, she guides bat walks at the Caverns. She is passionate about sharing the love and respect she has for our wildlife. Her interest in bats was first ignited when her youngest daughter fell in love with the book Stellaluna. Susan encouraged her interest and it has led her to her current role in bat education and outreach.
Meet : Nursery entrance gate at 5845 N Camino de la Tierra
Directions : Turn south off Orange Grove at the Camino de la Tierra traffic light. Camino de la Tierra is between Thornydale and Mona Lisa, east of I-10.
Nursery manager and AZNPS member Amy Belk will show us native plants from seedlings to maturity. This is a great way to learn how to identify a wide range of our native species.
The Pima County Native Plant Nursery (NPN) grows native plants for landscaping projects in public spaces such as roadsides and medians, restoration sites, flood control properties, libraries and parks. This small, 4-acre nursery operates differently than a standard retail nursery, with inventory driven by upcoming public projects rather than sales forecasts. Because the plants are grown for restoration, a robust IPM (Integrated Pest Management) program with organic pest control methods is in place. As part of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, the nursery specializes in common, threatened, and rare species found in the Sonoran Desert.
After the native plant nursery tour, those who have time can also visit Prickly Park, adjacent to the nursery. The Park is a successful collaboration between Pima County and the Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society (TCSS), a local non-profit organization that rescues and salvages succulent species from private residences and large development projects all around town. Many of these rescued plants find their way to Prickly Park, where they can be enjoyed by the public for years to come. Come see how this once gravel mine and landfill has been transformed into a truly unique greenspace that now hosts a variety of wildlife!
Honeybee Canyon
Saturday 11 October, 7:30 am to 10:30 am
Meet : Honeybee Park parking lot, 13880 N Rancho Vistoso Blvd
Directions : Turn off Oracle Road and drive NW on 1st Ave in Oro Valley. Continue through the Tangerine light where the road becomes Rancho Vistoso Blvd. Past the Vistoso Highlands light the road curves and descends to Honeybee Canyon. Slow down as you cross the bridge as the parking lot entrance is right after the bridge. Best to use a GPS.
After an historically dry July and August, Honeybee Canyon received regular rains in the month of September resulting in a surge of plant growth. We will walk one mile up Honeybee wash with granitic shelves on either side that provide natural trellises for desert grasses, flowering plants, and cacti. The sandy canyon floor has vegetative islands of seep willow, burrobrush, and Gooding willow. We will see various desert vine species including wild snapdragon, twinevine, and pipevine. As we slowly gain elevation we will see Justicia longii,Coursetia bushes and a Escobaria cactus. Near the top of the canyon we will see the beautiful Owl petroglyph panel. Several plants will be in bloom at the time of this field trip.
Over the past year AZNPS has joined with the Vistoso Hiker Club in an effort to “rewild Honeybee Canyon”. Volunteers have made a sustained effort to manually and chemically take out buffel/fountaingrass, African lovegrasses and bermudagrass from the areas we will visit. Already native plants are emerging in the controlled areas.
Common Sense Passive Water Harvesting in Oro Valley and Oracle
Saturday 24 October7:30 am to noon
Meet : Trader Joe Parking lot on SE corner of Oracle/Magee. Just north of the shopping carts. We will carpool. Limit: 15 participants RSVP to tucsonaznpstrips@gmail.com
We are bringing back our pre-Covid popular annual learning tour about common sense passive water harvesting in Oro Valley and Oracle, led by Chuck LeFevre. Chuck is a berm, rock and boulder placer extraordinaire. Water harvesting landscapes will be visited along roadways, public common areas, and both small and large front yards. You will be impressed by the simplicity and sheer common sense of these passive water harvest projects. In Oracle we will also have a chance to botanize in and around the water harvest sites. For those who have time, we will stay and eat brunch together at the new Riot Grill in Oracle.
Tucson Chapter Update
Posted on Aug 05, 2025
Tucson Chapter SUMMER UPDATE
SAVE THE DATE – Monsoon Mixer!
Thursday September 11, 6:00 – 8:00 pm at Slow Body Brewery.
COME RECONNECT WITH YOUR NATIVE PLANT ROOTS! This is a great chance to see old friends and make new ones, all while enjoying a pleasant evening on the Slow Body Patio.
Beverages will be available from Slow Body.
Light refreshments provided (bring something to share if you wish).
Food truck available for more substantial fare.
· Preview of the upcoming Tucson Native Plant year
· PLANT SWAP – bring an extra plant or two, and swap with your friends
· Book for sale – we will have a limited number of copies of the new book by our friend and recent past president Jack Dash and Luke Takata, “The Southwest Native Plant Primer: 235 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden,” just out from Timber Press. See the review in the last Plant Press Arizona. Copies are $24.99 and we will take checks or cash (no credit cards).
There’s lots to see out there – join us this month!
August 10 Roadside Grasses
August 16 Summer Bloomers at CSP
August 17 Waterman Restoration
August 23 Native Grasses and street runoff water harvesting
August 30 Madera Canyon Plant Walk
Roadside Grass Field Trip
Sunday 10 August 2025, 7:30 am to 9:30 am
Meet on the north side of the Trader Joe’s Parking area on the SE corner of Magee/Oracle
Roadsides are unlikely but surprising places to find dozens of native (and non-native) grasses.Join John Scheuring on a driving grass tour of roadside basins brimming with various grass species. We will see 12-14 native grasses and 3 invasive grasses. This will be a great way to learn our common grasses by seeing them side-by-side in bloom.
In addition to grasses, we will walk through swathes of blooming Arizona Caltrop. A highlight of the tour will be Trailing Grama Grass (Bouteloua diversispicula), the newly discovered roadside species common in Sonora that had only been previously found in Arizona in one remote area of Ironwood Forest.
We will not park or walk on busy roadways but bring a reflective vest if you have one.
Summer Bloomer Plant Walk : Catalina State Park
Saturday 16 August, 2025, 7 am to 10 am
Meet : Drive straight ahead past the CSP entrance to the north side of the main parking lot. We will meet at the kiosk near the cactus tile mosaic wall
Join Arizona Native Plant Society members on a leisurely walk through Upland Desert and Riparian plant communities along the 3-mile Canyon Loop trail. We will see reliable summer bloomers like Arizona Caltrop, the Orange Flameflower, Desert Honeysuckle and various Four o’clock species. An early summer morning is a great time to learn about key desert plants; including trees, grasses, and cacti. Besides the plants we will learn about geology and critters great and small.
Summer Plant Walk : Waterman Restoration Site
Sunday 17 August, 2025, 7 am to 10 am
Directions : Turn off I-10 onto Avra Valley Rd (Exit 242), turn west and drive 19 miles straight ahead. Turn left after the brown Interpretive Sites sign and drive one mile, bearing left.
Join Arizona Native Plant Society conservation chairman John Scheuring on a stroll through this impressive desert restoration site 15 years after getting a monoculture of buffelgrass under control and installing passive water harvesting. The setting is a limestone foothill slope snuggled at the base of the Waterman Mountains on Ironwood Forest National Monument.
We will see many of 130 native species growing on the 18 acres with focus on the keystone species that serve to restore and maintain the desert. Trailing four o’clock, Desert Hibiscus, Prickly lettuce, Desert Fairy Duster and various Abutilon species will be in bloom. In addition we will see actively growing bio-crust composed of a mix of mosses and lichens. We will see transplanted saguaros rescued by TCSS as well as the successful use of discarded Christmas Trees to reduce erosion in channels and headcuts. We will walk slowly over uneven ground for about a mile.
Join Jennifer Patton and Ben Wilder of Wilder Landscape Architects on a tour of a recently constructed streetside stormwater harvesting project. This project, funded by the City of Tucson’s Storm to Shade program, features twenty-four species of container grown native plants including four species of grasses, and a seed mix consisting of an additional thirty-three native species (12 of those grasses). Learn how the City is putting roadway runoff to work on City-owned parcels to grow shade.
Wilder will provide an overview of the project, and provide identification tips for the following grasses that you will see:
If we are lucky, there will also be successful germination of the numerous native plant species that were seeded, and we can have fun identifying those as well.
We will not park or walk on busy roadways but bring a reflective vest if you have one.
Five plant communities come together on Madera Canyon’s Proctor Loop Trail. Join naturalist Doug Moore for an ANPS monsoon nature walk in the canyon. We’ll take a stroll around “the Loop” looking for monsoon plants/flowers, and also insects, birds/nests and other nature.
Park & meet at the Proctor Parking Area. We will walk the .75 mile Proctor Loop. The monsoon season has brought precipitation to the canyon; both summer plants and animals are active. This is an easy to moderate walk on mostly paved trail with some uneven sections and mild altitude loss/gain. (We may take the primitive trail up to the upper bridge below the White House Loop, if not too overgrown!)
Bring a bag lunch; the group can picnic at Proctor (or higher in canyon if too warm) after the walk.To participate, you MUST be able to walk/stand for several hours. There are benches along the trail at intervals.
Please wear comfortable walking/hiking shoes. Bring water, binocs, hand lens, sun hat, & insect repellent; optional: camera, walking stick
Don’t wait to sign up as space is limited; walks often fill up fast!
Cautions:
1) Chiggers occur in the grassy habitat around/above Proctor. Bring insect repellent or powdered sulfur, consider wearing long pants and stay on the main trail as much as possible.
2) Monsoon weather can change quickly; safety is our utmost priority! If thunderstorms develop or lightening becomes possible, we will stop the walk and return to the parking area as quickly as possible.
3) There can be lots of wildlife on the road to the canyon in the morning. Please drive carefully and watch for wildlife! Enjoy these special animals and take care not to run them over!
Highlights from Spring 2025
Posted on Jun 05, 2025
In March, we were fortunate to host a program by Melissa Sevigny, author of Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon. It is always exciting to hear authors talk about their books, the challenges and successes of their experiences. The inspiration for Melissa’s book came from a display at NAU’s Cline Library and the ensuing conversation and encouragement of the Special Collections librarian.
April 2025: Pima County is unusual, and fortunate, in having a native plant nursery where plants are grown for restoration projects and mature plants are temporarily housed during construction projects. Amy Belk, manager of the Pima County Native Plant Nursery, was our April speaker, sharing some of the key differences between growing for restoration and growing for production or retail markets. Through education, they are also helping to bridge the botanical gaps between community development and conservation of our natural and cultural resources.
Upcoming! Plans are underway for our chapter’s annual Monsoon Mixer, held in July or August. This event is a way for members and plant enthusiasts to enjoy a social evening, highlighted by plant give-aways, raffles, and in some years a silent auction. Some years the event has even been blessed with a monsoon rain.
