Dear Members,
Happy Groundhog Day! I have two bits of good news for you.
First, tickets for our Annual Meeting go on sale this Friday, February 6, at 10 am. The meeting is Saturday, March 7, at Ocean County College in Toms River, sponsored by Ocean County College, Jersey Friendly Yards, and Barnegat Bay Partnership, or online via Zoom.
This year’s theme is resilience—how we adapt to environmental uncertainty. Three speakers bring complementary perspectives from design, ecology, and hands-on horticulture: renowned landscape designer Larry Weaner, FAPLD, on ecological landscape design; Dr. James Shepherd of Yale on how biodiversity loss affects human health; and former NPSNJ president Kathleen Salisbury on the Ambler Arboretum’s recovery from a catastrophic 2021 tornado.
Whether you’re new to the movement, a seasoned practitioner, or a landscape professional, there will be something for you here: why ticks and Lyme disease are spreading (and why we need to plant more native plants), what catastrophic storms do to landscapes, and how to design native plant landscapes, big or small, for change rather than against it. In-person attendees will find informative tabling, the Nature of Reading Bookstore (including book signings with Larry Weaner and Wildstory co-host Ann Wallace), and time at lunch to meet others in the Society. We are trying a new caterer this year, so we hope the lunch options will be better.
Full details and tickets on our website.
In-person tickets are $60 (members only); Zoom tickets are $30 for non-members, $20 for members. Membership is only $25, so be sure to sign up today.
We will have a large number of Continuing Education Units available for those who need them: Details and tickets at npsnj.org/event/2026-annual-meeting. In-person tickets are $60 (members only); Zoom tickets are $30 for non-members, $20 for members. Membership is $25. CEUs available for those who need them: 3 NJLTE/LTCO, 3 ISA, 3 NOFA OLC, 3 SER CERP, 2 Urban Forestry
Second, Governor Phil Murphy signed the Invasive Species Management Act on his final day in office, giving New Jersey its first law regulating invasive plants. I want to thank everyone who called or wrote—our continued pressure was essential.We were one of the only states without a list of prohibited species. Now we have one: 31 invasive plants to start, including familiar villains like Callery pear, Norway maple, Japanese barberry, winged euonymus, tree-of-heaven, and autumn olive. Pinelands Nursery made this excellent visual guide to the now-prohibited plants.
Critically, the New Jersey Invasive Species Council, originally created under Governor McGreevey in 2004, will also be reestablished. That Council produced a 220-page Strategic Management Plan, which documented a $290 million annual economic impact on agriculture and found that 30% of the state’s flora were nonnative. Governor Christie disbanded it in 2010, supposedly because of the financial crisis. The council will now have the authority to review the species list every three years and add emergent threats before they become the next barberry. Under the law, Acting Commissioner Ed Potosnak must convene the Invasive Species Council within 60 days, and the DEP must adopt implementing regulations within 12 months. He’s the former executive director of the NJ League of Conservation Voters and widely respected—so we have high hopes he will continue to advocate for the environment in his new role.
This victory was years in the making. In 2022, when Laura Bush and I were co-chairs of Advocacy, we worked with partners including John Landau of Foote’s Pond Wood, Mike Van Clef (Program Director of the Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space Invasive Species Strike Team), and the New Jersey Nursery & Landscape Association—whose president, Tom Knezick of Pinelands Nursery, helped bridge conservation and industry interests. The bill won bipartisan support, only to be vetoed by Governor Murphy. It again passed with bipartisan support, but Murphy only signed it on his last day in office, and the announcement came only after Governor Mikie Sherrill—a supporter of native plants during her time in Congress—was inaugurated.
Special thanks to our Advocacy Committee, former co-chair Laura Bush and current co-chair Russ Furnari, who represented NPSNJ throughout the legislative process and provided testimony in Trenton, and, once again, to all of you who reached out.
One last thing. Larry Weaner will be speaking on the next episode of the Wildstory podcast. And if you haven’t taken the Rutgers Environmental Stewards Survey, please do. The team will be very grateful for more responses.
See you at the meeting,
Kazys Varnelis, Ph.D
President, Native Plant Society of New Jersey