What’s new with solar?  Time for an update.  A solar farm is in development for Houston, and Tesla will tell us what their solar offering is these days. In addition, we’ll have a bit of permit data about solar installations in Houston.

Dori Wolfe, founder of Wolfe Energy, will discuss her C-40 proposal to the City of Houston to convert a brownfield landfill to a solar farm including systems thinking and recent progress in the community solar movement.  Mark Mason, market manager of Houston Metro/Mexico of TESLA, will fill you in on the various solar products offered by Tesla, such as those solar roof tiles you’ve heard about, and how those are different from the other products on the market.

The City of Houston—Public Works & Engineering Code Enforcement Green Building Resource Center presents this Education Seminar in partnership with the Texas Chapter of the US Green Building Council.  This 2019 series is generously underwritten by Rockwool.

CEUs available.  Please RSVP to steve.stelzer@houstontx.gov. Free parking.  Bus stop: Preston@Elder.

Volunteers meet the second and fourth Thursday of every month to propagate plants from locally collected native seed. A typical workday may include seeding pots, bumping up trays into 1-gallon containers, separating seedlings, and weeding pots. They will also have special seed collecting trips, invasive species removal workdays, and planting events in restored prairies.

If you’re interested in volunteering for the Natural Resource Management Program, email kelli.ondracek@houstontx.gov or visit houstontx.gov/parks/naturalresources.html.

Please join the Houston Chapter of Native Prairies Association of Texas for their Fall Wildflower Day to enjoy the fall blooms and wildlife at the Lawther-Deer Park Prairie Preserve.

See prairie plants that you can use in your garden to attract pollinators, learn seed collecting techniques and take some Deer Park Prairie seeds home. Experience the beauty of insects through Chuck Duplant’s photos at tinyurl.com/CDuplant; then come and learn about them from him in person.  Bring your camera or smartphone to take photos of plants and animals that you see and post on the Deer Park Prairie Project on Naturalist.org.  Activities include:

● Bird Survey (tentative)
● Insect Net Sweeping – by Chuck DuPlant at the Insect Popup Tent
● Wildflower Walk – learn plant identification techniques, including taking photos
● Seed Collecting / Prairie History walk
● Complimentary lunch

Since lunch will be provided, RSVP IS REQUIRED, at https://tinyurl.com/DPP190928, so they can have a food count.

Join us for this important Environmental Forum to discuss topics that are focused on the City of Houston.  You are encouraged to bike or travel electrically by taking the Green Line to the Coffee Plant/Second Ward light rail station. The house is one block away at 317 Sampson Street.  Please bring your own chair and reusable water bottle.

The event is sponsored by 350.org Houston, Citizens Climate Lobby Houston, Energy & Environmental Democrats, Environment Texas, Houston Climate Movement, and Houston Renewable Energy Group.  #oursharedhouston

The Memorial Park Conservancy has generously offered Katy Prairie Conservancy use of their greenhouse while the Native Seed Nursery at KPC’s field office in Waller is being renovated. Volunteers will help grow plants that will be used for various Katy Prairie Conservancy spring projects and for the Great Grow Out. The Memorial Park Conservancy Greenhouse is located in Memorial Park on the south side of Memorial Drive. All are welcome, no experience necessary.

Workdays are scheduled for the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month from 9:00 a.m. to noon.

The 2019 annual symposium will focus on conserving native plants in the upper Texas coastal prairies, also known as the Northern Humid Gulf Coastal Prairies in the EPA Level IV ecoregion map.

Quaternary-age deltaic sands, silts, and clays underlie much of this gently sloping coastal plain. The original vegetation was mostly grasslands with a few clusters of oaks, known as oak mottes or maritime woodlands. Little bluestem, yellow Indiangrass, brownseed paspalum, gulf muhly, and switchgrass were the dominant grassland species, with some similarities to the grasslands of the Blackland Prairies. Almost all of the coastal prairies have been converted to cropland, rangeland, pasture, or urban land uses. The exotic Chinese tallow tree and Chinese privet have invaded large areas in this region. Some loblolly pine occurs in the northern part of the region in the transition to the South Central Plains. Soils are mostly fine-textured: clay, clay loam, or sandy clay loam. Within the region, there are some differences from the higher Lissie Formation to the lower Beaumont Formation, both of Pleistocene age. The Lissie Formation has lighter colored soils, mostly Alfisols with sandy clay loam surface texture, while darker, clayey soils associated with Vertisols are more typical of the Beaumont Formation. Annual precipitation varies from 37 inches in the southwest portion to 58 inches in the northeast, with a summer maximum.

The symposium headquarters will be in League City, between Houston and Galveston. at the South Shore Harbour Resort and Conference Center, which is on the south side of Clear Lake across the lake from the Johnson Space Center. The event begins with a reception on Thursday evening for those arriving early, speakers on Friday morning with a choice of field trips in the afternoon, more speakers and breakout sessions on Saturday, and an awards banquet on Saturday night. A social event is planned for Friday night on the Kemah Boardwalk. In addition they have prepared a list of suggested side stops and field trips for those traveling on Thursday and Sunday.

Registration prices vary depending on your level of participation.