The Florida Wildflower Foundation recently announced official release of their 139-page Wild About Wildflowers!–A Classroom Activity Guide for Florida third and fourth-grade students. The guide outlines hands-on activities for lessons in how plants reproduce, adapt to their environments and interact in ecosystems with insects, animals and other plants. Activities have been designed to meet third and fourth-grade standards but can be adapted to other grade levels and used in other educational settings such as public parks. This new guide is a natural compliment to the use of wildflowers in outdoor classrooms — supported by Florida Wildflower Foundation grants to schools.

My daughter Erin is an outspoken millennial who at 21 is just the age we want to entice into our garden centers, and ultimately, our check-out lines. In other words, she is our future.

It would be optimistic to think that millennials have learned as much or more about plants than we did in school. Erin’s elementary school, like so many others in the country, experienced budget cuts. The luxury of having a dedicated growing space in the classroom was not possible. How will the next generation get excited about plants if they aren’t exposed to it when they are young?

There’s no escaping it; gardening is in 24/7, 365. That’s the word from The Garden Media Group (GMG), which released its annual trends report, called "Grow 365." The report identifies key elements in the changing industry, marketplace and society that, combined, propel us in the direction of healthy choices in lifestyle and in industry practices. How? By paying attention to the rising tide of health-consciousness among U.S. consumers – in particular, younger generations who see the value of healthy living, both individually and globally. Just as consumers are more concerned about their own well-being, they’re equally concerned with the health of their environment. Combine those passions, and ornamental horticulture can claim its rightful place as a leader in the movement.

You’ve heard of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday? Welcome Giving Tuesday, a global day of giving fueled by social media and collaboration and celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving. #GivingTuesday follows the well known shopping events and kicks off the end-of-year charitable season when many focus on holiday and year-end giving. Our newly launched Native Plant Horticulture Foundation is joining the fun and welcomes your donation in any amount.

Bills and lawsuits related to the DOL's overtime rule are in motion, but the chances of legislation impacting the Dec. 1 deadline are unlikely, and the results of lawsuits will not be known until mid-to-late November.

A week ago, while most Floridians were preoccupied by a certain approaching news event, a 12-day bus tour concluded in a campaign to highlight an issue whose impact — at least for Florida —could linger well beyond the results from Election Day.

Sponsored by the Everglades Foundation, the "Road to Restoration" tour — whose stops included Orlando — was intended to rally support for a plan to buy land and build a massive new reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee. The plan, whose $2.4 billion tab would be split between state and federal governments, comes from incoming Senate President Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican. His district includes coastal areas devastated this year by toxic algae blooms fueled by releases of water from the lake.

FANN and the Native Plant Horticulture Foundation invite the native plant industry to a retreat Friday and Saturday, December 9-10, 2016, at the Historic Bailey Homestead Preserve on Sanibel Island, perhaps the first community in Florida to require the preservation and use of native plants in landscaping. The preserve has been recently restored by its new owner and host for our retreat, the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, whose Native Landscapes & Garden Center is a longtime FANN member and Native Plant Show sponsor.

FANN is rotating their 5th Annual Native Plant Show to Bradenton, Florida. The show will be hosted in the Bradenton Area Convention Center Exhibit Hall at 1 Haben Blvd, Palmetto, Florida. FANN’s Native Plant Show committee wants to reach out to more industry professionals in South Florida and expects a significant increase in attendance from Naples, Fort Myers, Sarasota and the Greater Tampa Bay region.

Numerous articles provide a primer for how to create bird habitat from planning, to locating sources, considerations for shopping at the nursery and native plant recommendations. Professional photography brings the site to life.

An interactive database provides lists of plants best for birds by zip code as well as the birds attracted by those plants. Users may choose to show the best choices, or a "full" list with harder to find plants included. It also includes links to local Audubon Clubs and lists of nurseries where plants may be purchased.

Environmental justice, which is about the fair distribution of environmental benefits and costs, is a "growing concern" among landscape architects across the globe, said Kurt Culbertson, FASLA, Design Workshop.

For example, in ASLA’s 2016 Student Awards, 68 percent of the award-winning designs focused on environmental and social justice.

Over the past few years, living with a drought has seemingly become a way of life for growers in California. Just last year, Greenhouse Grower analyzed how landowners and homeowners were looking for any ways they could find to save water, from watering less to incorporating more drought-tolerant plants. Growers, in turn, were responding by adding water reclamation systems and promoting the different ways that their customers could save water while maintaining healthy landscapes.