Please join us for our most popular event of the year: our annual winter tree identification walk & potluck at the State Arboretum of Virginia! Join us and our co-hosts, the State Arboretum of Virginia (Blandy), for an approximately 90-minute guided walk and tree ID primer by Virginia State Forester Connor Goolsby and Blandy curator Ariel Firebaugh. You'll never again mistake an oak for a walnut, or a spruce for a fir!

A potluck and social hour with fellow nature nerds will follow the walk. Please bring a vegetarian snack or dessert to share!

Attendance is limited to 30, and previous years' walks filled up far in advance. Get your tickets now to reserve your spot! Tickets are $20 per person, or $15 for members of Sustainability Matters or of the Foundation of the State Arboretum.

Accessibility information: The walk will cover approximately 1/2 mile or less, on lawn and mulch paths. If you have any questions about accessibility, please contact us at hello@sustainabilitymatters.earth

Come join us for a special seed gathering event with Ali & Jeff Carithers, the charismatic hosts of our Native Virginia Now video series! Explore their stunning wildflower meadows, and learn how to identify, collect, and preserve native perennial seeds. Plus, you’ll get to take home some seeds for your own collection. It’s the perfect day of nature, learning, and inspiration!

Attendance at the seed gathering is limited to Sustainability Matters members and volunteers and registration is required. Volunteers and members will receive the registration link via email. If you’re not already a member, there’s still time to join!

We’ll have an informal seed swap at the event. If you have anything you’d like to share, please bring it, clearly labeled. This is also a potluck, please bring a vegetarian dish to share!

Help us create a culture of recycling in Shenandoah County!

If you live in Shenandoah County, you may have noticed that you rarely see a recycling bin in our towns or at community events. We’re working to change that! 

Join us on Saturday, September 28 at either Woodstock’s WoodsTACO festival (11am - 3pm) or Mount Jackson’s Tater Fest (11am - 4pm). We’ll have a Sustainability Matters table at each event to share our work with the community, and we’ll have a set of recycling bins beside our table to collect plastic, glass, and aluminum. 

We need volunteers to take 2- or 3-hour shifts helping us encourage people to recycle and to haul what we collect to the convenience center. Together, we can keep all those beverage containers out of the landfill! If you want to help, email hello@sustainabilitymatters.earth.

A t-shirt and friendly companionship are provided free!

Please join us for a native meadow plant count in Rappahannock County on Sunday, September 22 at 1pm. We’ll meet at our Making Trash Bloom meadows at the Rappahannock County Landfill, where you’ll help us identify what’s growing in the pilot plots we planted there two years ago. You’ll be able to spend time outside, meet like-minded folks, and collect valuable data that will help us spread Making Trash Bloom to additional landfills!

Note on attire:
Please wear long pants, long sleeved shirts, a hat (if sunny), and closed toed shoes.

Items to bring with you:
Water bottle, work gloves, bug spray and sunblock (optional).

Note: When you register for this program, we'll also sign you up for Sustainability Matters' email list. We never sell your info, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

We’re so excited to officially launch our first Making History Bloom project on the W&OD Trail on Saturday, September 21! We found the perfect spot for our first native meadow, right next to the LOVE sign, a favorite destination for family photos. It will be a wonderful opportunity to educate visitors about the importance of native plants and wildlife!

Now we need your help to prepare the site! The first step is to remove the many invasive plants in this area, which will prepare the way for one of our joyful seeding parties in the near future. We’ll meet at 3pm on the trail by the LOVE sign, with expert leaders to show us what needs to be done.

Afterwards we’ll convene at the nearby Caboose Brewery to relax, socialize, celebrate our hard work, and raise funds for this important cause: Sustainability Matters is partnering with NOVA Parks to remove invasives and plant native meadows along 45 miles of the W&OD Trail. It’s a huge challenge, and we’re excited to tackle it and reach the 3 million visitors to this park every year. What a fabulous opportunity to get the word out about how much we love pollinators and native plants!

Note on attire:
Please wear long pants, long sleeved shirts, a hat (if sunny), and closed toed shoes.

Items to bring with you:
Water bottle, work gloves, bug spray and sunblock (optional).

Additional items to bring if you have them:
A spade, lopper, and hand clippers (although we should be able to provide some).

Note: When you register for this program, we'll also sign you up for Sustainability Matters' email list. We never sell your info, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

We have great news! The three test meadows we planted at the Rappahannock County Landfill in 2022 succeeded at providing more wildlife habitat, while preventing erosion on the closed trash cells. Join us to celebrate this success by seeding another meadow there on July 20th at 9am!

Afterwards, we'll convene at a wonderful local restaurant, Ours Noir, for a pay-your-own brunch to cool off and celebrate some more together.

This is a major milestone! Going forward, whenever they need to cover bare soil, instead of using the usual seed mix that includes invasive plants, Rappahannock County will now use native seed mixes - thanks to our successful pilot meadows! We could not be happier to have this chance to celebrate our founder Sari Carp's brilliant vision.

Note that the event will be held outdoors at the landfill. Please dress for sunshine, heat, and uneven terrain.

Water and snacks will be provided, but please bring your own reusable cup or water bottle to reduce the waste we produce.

About Making Trash Bloom:

Sustainability Matters’ Making Trash Bloom initiative reclaims ecologically barren land by planting native pollinator and wildlife habitat at landfills. Through bringing conservation to the most unexpected place of all - your local dump - we build community engagement around environmental transformation, inspiring and educating the public to create similar landscapes at home and elsewhere.

Note: When you register for this program, we'll also sign you up for Sustainability Matters' email list. We never sell your info, and you may unsubscribe at any time.