(Note: you can watch videos of some of our past programs on our YouTube channel.)
See our full Event Calendar at the bottom of this page!
Plant This, Not That (and other design advice) (Monthly Program)
Date: Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Olander Park, Nederhouser Community Hall, 6930 W. Sylvania Ave., Sylvania, OH
Local landscaper Maggie Schilb will offer advice on how to choose native plants and guidance on how to design a native garden. Tailored for beginners and seasoned gardeners alike, this presentation will touch on several resources you can use to design a native garden that appeals to you, your family, wildlife, and hopefully your neighbors as well.
The Undivided Eye: Leopold Between Science and Spirit (Monthly Program)
Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Olander Park, Nederhouser Community Hall, 6930 W. Sylvania Ave., Sylvania, OH
Speaker: Ashley Pryor, PhD, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Toledo
Aldo Leopold is rightly remembered as a pioneering environmental scientist — a trained forester and wildlife biologist whose thinking grew out of patient, disciplined fieldwork. Less well known is a thread I’ve traced in earlier work: the clear influence of P.D. Ouspensky, a Russian mystic philosopher, on Leopold’s iconic essay “Thinking Like a Mountain,” where Leopold imagines the mountain itself as a kind of witness, something that listens. This talk follows that thread into new territory — Leopold’s writing on native plants, where a similar impulse surfaces: a compass plant described almost as a creature with its own will, its own tenacity. Read together, these moments suggest something more than literary flourish. They suggest a scientist who never separated precise observation from a deeper, more spiritual attention to what he was observing — and who didn’t seem to think he had to choose. Leopold’s example is worth returning to now, for anyone who has ever felt that same divide in themselves. What he saw in a single compass plant is still there, waiting for anyone willing to look with both eyes open.
Presenter: Ashley Pryor, PhD, is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Toledo and affiliate faculty with the Jesup Scott Honors College. An interdisciplinary scholar of the humanities, most recently Pryor has published work on Zen and Eastern philosophy, on Aldo Leopold (developed as an NEH Summer Fellow), and on community-engaged arts and the humanities in higher education. Pryor is also a collage artist whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Books & Banter
Date: Saturday, October 10, 2026
Time: 10:00 am
Location: Olander Park, Nederhouser Community Hall, Gorman Room, 6930 W. Sylvania Ave., Sylvania, OH
Join us for a morning celebrating books inspired by the natural world. Bring along a favorite nature-themed book – fiction, nonfiction, poetry, resource – to share and discuss in small groups. Enjoy good conversation, a cup of tea, and baked pastries as we explore how the written word connects us to the beauty of the outdoors. Please RSVP with your book of choice to smaggie101@gmail.com.
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P.S. See all webinars by Wild Ones National here.
You can find more information about programs in our chapter newsletter and on our Facebook page.
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