December Update

Should we plant more oak trees despite oak decline syndrome? (Definitely). Please see the article at the bottom of this update and share as widely as possible.

The Fairfax Tree Rescuers Week of Action was a big success!

1518 trees were rescued by 471 participants at 26 events across Fairfax County! See the Fairfax Tree Rescuers PRISM website for details and many photos.

Outreach of the Month - help us reach people!

If you have some time to help the Plant NOVA Natives campaign reach more people, we would be very grateful if you would fill out this volunteer form. We are an all-volunteer organization! Examples of what is needed include

• Helping us stay organized (from your computer)

• Helping organize our conferences (English and Spanish)

• Managing projects

• Labeling native plants in garden centers

• Translating material into other languages

• Staffing information tables (no experience required)

• Giving presentations

• Social media - content creation and/or administering the sites

• Surveying areas for invasive plants.

End-of-year Wrap-Up

The native plant movement continues to grow, thanks to the efforts of all the partnering organizations and the volunteers. The professional survey we did this year demonstrated that this campaign of partners has made a real difference.  

• Pollinator Pathways started in four Northern Virginia neighborhoods (two of them contiguous - see map.)

• Fairfax Tree Rescuers PRISM launched. This is now a separate but closely-related organization. The Plant NOVA Trees educational Tree Rescuer program continues in all Northern Virginia jurisdictions, with volunteers counting trees at risk from invasive vines and dropping off door-hangers to alert the neighbors.

• Labels on native plants at 22 garden centers placed by 69 volunteers (Sadly, one of those garden centers has fallen under the shadow of the data centers.)

• Campaign updates distributed monthly to over 6,000 people

• 7th annual native plant conference for landscape professionals

• 3rd annual native plant conference for Spanish-speaking landscape professionals (Attendance was greatly reduced by fears of ICE.)

• 145K site visits by 93K unique visitors to PlantNOVANatives.org in the past year (down from the year before). As always, the most popular page is the one on groundcovers.

• 15K site visits by 11K unique visitors to PlantNOVATrees.org (down from the year before)

• 7.6K followers on Facebook (up by 4K). 3K followers on Instagram.

• 13K views on our YouTube channel (same as last year). (113 videos, of which 26 are in Spanish)

• 112 packages of outreach materials mailed out by one dedicated volunteer, 42 by another, and 14 by a third.

• 1440 Native Plants for Northern Virginia guides sold

• Articles posted on NextDoor and other social media sites by 56 volunteers

• Volunteers for 29 tabling events and presentations arranged by us, most prominently a presentation before government representatives at the Northern Virginia Regional Commission on the results of the survey mentioned above.

• Countless educational and other events hosted and staffed by our partnering organizations. 

• Support for our sister campaigns in other parts of the state continue, as does work on a Spanish translation for a statewide native plant guide.

Shopping for a native plant enthusiast?

We have lots of suggestions, from our print native plant guides, to gifts of trees, to bling. Except for the Gift of Trees, which serves as a fundraiser for Plant NOVA Natives, we don’t make any profit off of any of this. Our only interest is in spreading the word. https://www.plantnovanatives.org/store 

Upcoming events - in person

• Wildlife Sanctuary Presentation - using your own yard to support wildlife. Mount Vernon UU Church. December 13, 1 pm

• Save the Date: Prince WIlliam Native Plant Symposium February 14, 2026

Report your native tree and shrub plantings

Please help Northern Virginia meet its tree-planting obligations by reporting your tree and shrub plantings here. So far 20,142 have been reported!

Report your tree rescues

Millions of trees in Northern Virginia are at risk from invasive non-native vines. You can help by saving them on your own land or by volunteering on public land. (Plant NOVA Natives/Plant NOVA Trees only does educational outreach, so all this work is done under the auspices of our partnering organizations or other landowners.). So far, 21,377 tree rescues (includes 1518 from the Fairfax Tree Rescuers launch) have been reported in Northern Virginia. Please add your report here.  

Next Steering Committee meeting – December 11, 10am-noon via videoconferencing. All are welcome. Check our Event Calendar for future meetings.

Support Plant NOVA Natives

Would you like to support the campaign? Give a Gift of Trees. All proceeds will go to Plant NOVA Natives. Straight donations are more than welcome, too! :) 

This month’s newsletter articles to share. For social media, please use this link. 

Love Our Mighty Oaks 

By Eileen Ellsworth

Native species of oak trees are abundant across our region. Northern Red Oaks and White Oaks in particular are among our most dominant keystone species, contributing to the ecosystem in ways that are mighty indeed.

Doug Tallamy has written and spoken extensively about oaks. Like all large canopy trees, they scrub air-borne pollutants,  capture CO2,  provide oxygen and shade, manage stormwater runoff, and produce a productive leaf litter. But oaks are noteworthy in their ability to nurture insects – a form of life that E. O. Wilson called “the little things that run the world.”  Without caterpillars, there would be no terrestrial food webs. Pause for a moment to take that in.

Tallamy estimates that oak trees are hosts for hundreds if not thousands of species of caterpillars. A full third of our native moths depend upon oaks to reproduce. He estimates that only 14% of native plants produce 90% of caterpillar food, which is the reason he considers oak trees to be “keystone” to biodiversity. Caterpillars eat the oak leaves, and birds feed the caterpillars to their nestlings – many thousands of them during just one breeding season. If you want to attract a wider diversity of nesting birds on your property, plant an oak.

Oak trees contribute to the ecosystem in winter as well. Many small birds such as chickadees, titmice, and golden crowned kinglets can be seen flitting through the canopy on the coldest days of the year. What are they doing? To find out, Bernd Heinrich, a research scientist and biology professor at the University of Vermont, examined the crops of golden crowned kinglets in Maine, in January. He discovered they were filled with geometrid moth caterpillars, commonly known as inchworms. Remarkably, these caterpillars produce a kind of anti-freeze that enables them to survive freezing cold temperatures. Even in the dead of winter, our native oaks support caterpillars that drive the food web.  

White Oaks and Northern Red Oaks also drop fat- and protein-rich acorns, of course, and many tons of them during a “mast year.” Up to 3 million acorns can be produced by a single oak during its lifetime. Squirrels, deer, and chipmunks all eat acorns, as do many species of birds such as turkeys, red-headed woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, flickers, titmice, towhees, wood ducks, and bluejays.

Jays of all kinds enjoy a particularly ancient and beneficial relationship with acorns. They cache them. A single jay will fly up to a mile to bury an estimated 4,500 acorns each fall, only remembering where 1 in 4 are buried. They are therefore planting 3,300 oaks a year, turning oak trees into the “fastest moving” deciduous trees in the world.

The decline of our older oaks that has been going on for decades came to a head a few years ago. The early wet weather in 2018 and 2019, followed by summer heat and drought and winters with unusual temperature swings, stressed many tree species but especially oaks. The combination opened the door to ambrosia beetles and other pests. Many mature oak trees died across the region. It is painful to watch our older oaks die off, but it is all the more important that we actively replace them with young ones. They play a critical role in our ecosystem.

As a grassroots movement, Plant NOVA Natives encourages each of us to do what we can to rebuild the biodiversity of the region. Tallamy reminds us that our individual landscaping decisions can help capture carbon, manage the watershed, diversify the insect population, and support food webs.

When we plant a single oak tree, or spare an existing one, all four of these ecological goals are achieved.  The Plant NOVA Natives website and its companion Plant NOVA Trees website can help you learn how to do it.