Florida Native Plant Society Blog

Loret Thatcher aka Loret Setters was a transplant from New York and one of the first things she did to learn about our Florida native plants was to join the Florida Native Plant Society Pine Lily Chapter. She joined with great determination, enthusiasm, passion and eagerness to learn. She began as Pine Lily’s newsletter editor. She went on to do an amazing job with publicity. She started a blog called “What Florida Native Plant Is Blooming Today?” chronicling what was blooming in her own small yard. This was followed by “Tales of a Central Florida Wildlife Garden” and “Central Florida Critter of the Day”. All of them wildly successful and followed by people around the world. In addition, she was a member of two team blogs: Beautiful Wildlife Gardens and Native Plant & Wildlife Gardens along with top garden writers around the country. Her excellent photography of native plants, butterflies, and insects have been everywhere including Alabama Butterfly Atlas, Earth and Space News, The...

Tayler Figueroa is the Chapter Representative for the Pine Lily Chapter . She lives in Kissimmee with her husband and two young boys. I interviewed her at her house on January 10, 2019. VA: When did you become an FNPS member and how did you hear about FNPS? TF: I started a vegetable garden in the spring, and I noticed there were very few bees in my garden. I started researching how to help the native pollinators, and planting native wildflowers kept coming up. I used FNPS’s plant search and when I saw that you could get discounts on native plants by joining FNPS, I was excited, but I balked at the $35 per month membership fee. I would need to buy a lot of plants, but I thought it would be worth it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it costs much less to be a member than I thought. VA: Why do you stay involved with FNPS? TF: Once you start and you realize what’s at stake… you can’t give in. Wait, let me back up and really answer the questions. Once I was hooked, I reali...