Events

PLEASE NOTE: Early start time so we have enough daylight for the outdoor portion of our program.

Presenter: John Metzler

We will start with a slide show in the auditorium and then move outside to Matthaei's gardens to take photos. 

Topics to be addressed include seeing through the lens, lighting, shooting from different angles, e.g., lying on the ground, capturing the essence of the subject, and proximity to the subject.

About John Metzler 

John Metzler is a partner at applEcon, LLC, an antitrust economics firm in Ann Arbor. He got his start in photography sixty years ago with a sister's Kodak Brownie, learned to shoot 35mm on his Dad's fully-manual Minolta Rangefinder ten years later, and switched to digital in 2004. An avid explorer of regional natural areas, John shares his pictures of various natural areas with their stewards to use as they choose. He began learning botany and native plants on Ellen Elliott Weatherbee's WedAm walking botany lectures in 2018, and he then joined the Michigan Botanical Society in 2022.

All of John's pictures are on his website, https://johnmetzler.smugmug.com/.  All are available as full resolution downloads free of charge for non-commercial use.

PARKING: Metered parking is available at Matthaei Botanical Gardens; Matthaei members park for free.

Program description and exact time will be provided by May 1, 2025.

Presenter: Brenda Sattler

PARKING: Metered parking is available at Matthaei Botanical Gardens; Matthaei members park for free.

NOTE: Exact start and end time and meeting point will be provided by June 1, 2025

Guide: Brooks Curtis

Join Brooks Curtis for a walk in the Bird Hills Nature Area. We will learn how to identify and eradicate many invasive species (spring and woody invasive). We will discuss the restoration successes and the challenges. We will also discuss the history and explore some of the features of the Bird Hills Nature Area. Most of the walk will be on the trails, but there might be an opportunity to go off trail in a few areas. 

Brooks has been a park steward at Bird Hills Nature Area, Ann Arbor’s largest at 146 acres, for about nine years. During that time, there has been a substantial reduction in the number of invasive species due to the involvement of many volunteers and City of Ann Arbor staff support (Nature Area Preservation).

About Our Guide

Brooks Curtis began doing ecological restoration work around 2005 by volunteering at the University of Michigan Arboretum and Matthaei Botanical Gardens. After a few years, he found out about the City of Ann Arbor's NAP Stewardship Workday program, and realizing that they were in worse shape and had the fewest resources, he started focusing primarily on the Ann Arbor nature areas. 

In 2013 Brooks became the Ann Arbor Park Steward for Sunset Brooks Nature Area, which he selected because it is small (7.5 acres) and in very bad shape; he figured that whatever work he did he couldn’t make the nature area any worse. Sunset Brooks Nature Area receives a tremendous amount of stormwater from four different streets and now, after a decade of restoration work, it absorbs most of the stormwater, due to the clearing of woody invasives and the introduction of native wet area plants.

NOTE: Exact start and end time, meeting point, registration information, and program description will be provided by July 1, 2025.

Registration will be required for this event.

Presenters: Ron Gamble and Faye Stoner

River Bend Gardens was established in July 2017, and formally founded by my wife and I in January 2019 as a private botanical garden, aviary, and retreat for our family of five children.

The property was selected for its unique combination of natural features, and is located in Washtenaw County, 15 miles Southwest of Ann Arbor, in the Village of Manchester.  The gardens are situated on 65 acres with a half mile of frontage on the River Raisin, and adjacent to the South and West with the Leonard Preserve, a 259-acre property owned by Washtenaw County’s Natural Areas Preservation, and The Nature Conservancy.

There are twelve gardens that make-up River Bend, with nine natural plant communities, and several glacial features in the landscape from kames, an out-wash plain, to a floodplain that includes a Buttonbush depression.  In addition to the River Raisin, the property includes a 4 acre pond, two brooks, and over 30 natural springs.

Hiking River Bend Gardens offers our guest an opportunity to view a gardener's pragmatic effort at native plant preservation and restoration.  Wayne is happy to share the mechanics of the preservation work and prairie restoration with considerations to methods, successes, and failures.  

River Bend Gardens offers our guests a short walk (1/4 mile) to the prairie and meeting location, or guests may elect a longer hike (3 miles) through the garden on the trails to the meeting location.  While the trails are established, they are not completely groomed, the garden is not ADA compliant, nor is there a restroom present on the property.

Guests who chose the three mile hike on the Garden Trail, presented in yellow on the attached trail map, should arrive at 9:00am at the East Entrance Garden.  You can use 115 Mound Street Manchester, MI 48158 as the GPS address.  There is a horseshoe drive where you can pull-in for parking, or on the shoulder of Mound Street on the north side of the street facing west.

Guests who prefer a short walk to the prairie should arrive at 10:30am at the West Entrance Garden.  You can use 328 River Bend Manchester, MI 48158 as the GPS address.  There is adequate parking off the street on garden property.

In either case there will be someone from the River Bend family there to guide you to the meeting location.  After a discussion and Q&A, the guests will be free to walk the trails and experience the gardens at their own pace.

NOTE: Exact start and end time, meeting point,  and program description will be provided by July 15, 2025.

NOTE: Exact start and end time and program description will be provided by September 1, 2025.

Presenter: Calla Butler

Details coming soon! 

NOTE: Exact start and end time and program description will be provided by October 1, 2025.

Details coming soon! 

NOTE: Program description will be provided by November 1, 2025.

Presenter: Caylen Cole-Hazel

Details coming soon! 

NOTE: Program description will be provided by December 1, 2025.