“The Secret Life of Trees”

Date: July 13th, 2019

Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Optional hike following the presentation: 12:00 p.m. ~ 2:00 p.m.

Location: Anne Elizabeth Suratt Nature Center at Walnut Creek Preserve

Speaker: Steve Pettis, Henderson County Horticulture Agent

Trees are amazing organisms, living in most environments across the planet.  They are vital to our way of life, both for the useful products we derive from wood and as an integral factor in the quality of our lives.  Trees interact with each other and the environment in interesting ways. After the presentation, interested participants are invited to join Steve for a hike in the Preserve to learn hands on.

Steve Pettis has spent his life studying plants and gardening.  As a child, he gardened with his grandmother dividing daylilies, irises and daffodils and collecting native plants in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Georgia.  Steve has been a tree farm and nursery manager, a research greenhouse manager, a consulting arborist, UGA Extension Agent in Rockdale and Gwinnett Counties, and is now a North Carolina Horticulture Agent in Henderson County.