You are invited to register your pollinator friendly garden.

2025 Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail Spring Symposium and Plant Sale

May 2, 2025
8:30AM – 2:30PM
Plains Community Center
Plains, Georgia


Symposium Keynote Speaker Dr. Allan Armitage
From Chaos to Contentment

Well known as a writer, speaker and researcher throughout the world, Emeritus Professor of Horticulture at UGA

Come join Dr A as he shares his garden journey with us. For better or worse, he and his wife, Susan, started talking about the D word as their children grew older. The D word is downsizing, an endeavor that has become more and more common with boomers and old er clientele. Having left a lovely well-established garden in the country, they found them selves in possession of a cottage that needed a little work and a garden that was nonexistent.

Dr A will explain how he put this small in town garden together, and the plants he felt provided the most impact and the least maintenance. He will show the pain and frustration along with the joy and beauty as the bare ground was transformed in a comfortable garden.

This is a talk more about plant choices than plant design. There are no major water features, no mountains in the background and nothing but a rather forlorn fence between neighbors. However, when even the finest landscape designers visit, they too sit back and enjoy the vista.

Dr A will discuss his favorite small trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals and other garden features and how they interact together. Not all plants he mentions will thrive in south Georgia, but you will enjoy the time spent with one of the nation’s finest Horticulturists.


Other Symposium Speakers

Dr. Jaap de Roode, PhD
Emory University Department of Biology
Director, de Roode Monarch Lab

Melissa Montgomery

Melissa Montgomery
Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter’s
Personal Assistant 1985-2023


You can register online for $65.00.Registration after April 1 is $70.

Details about speakers, plant vendors and the event are posted online
Contact Annette Wise at annette@rosalynncarterbutterflytrail.org or 229-824-4567

This Year's Speakers

Dr. Allan Armitage

Dr. Allan M. Armitage, an internationally renowned horticulturist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Georgia, has revolutionized the gardening world through his prolific writing, groundbreaking plant introductions, and decades of leadership that earned him nearly every major award in horticulture, including having an award named in his honor. Not just a giant in horticulture, this Renaissance man even excels on the tennis court, winning national titles and Olympic medals in his age group, proving that his expertise extends well beyond the garden.

Melissa Montgomery

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter’s
Personal Assistant 1985-2023

Dr. Jaap de Roode

Migration, parasites and the best ways to protect Monarch butterflies

Jaap will present some of the biological discoveries the de Roode Lab at Emory University has made on Monarch butterflies. The research includes how parasitism has become an increasing problem, and how we can help monarchs(and other pollinators) by re-creating habitat.

Information based on research will also be presented on the impact  commercially purchased and released butterflies into an environment have on the native population.

Annette Wise

Annette Wise

Previous Speakers

Amy Heidt

Amy Heidt is a retired science educator. She taught in Ben Hill and Tift Counties and spent the last couple of years as a Science Mentor to school systems across South Georgia. She became interested in native plants as a classroom teacher and wove this into her teaching; writing grants and developing curricula that integrated native plant studies into K-12 curricula through RESA projects and state curriculum development.

Lauren Goble

Planting Seeds for Future Growth

Did you know that one out of every three bites of  food you eat is because of pollinators? Lauren Goble, Educational Programs Coordinator for Georgia Farm Bureau will share resources about pollinators and Georgia’s number one industry, agriculture. These resources can be used in educational programs for adults as well as students. Resources will include hands on activities and ways to engage participants in the importance of pollinators in our everyday life.

Tom Johnson

Creating The Romantic Garden

A Romantic Garden is Man’s attempt at recreating Eden, A place where God, Man and Nature are in Harmony. Man does not control nature, he simply designs himself a part of the song already playing. In this program, we will discuss this style of Garden: It’s history and how to use it to design a garden for butterflies and other pollinators in a natural setting.

Felicity Davis

The Georgia Department of Transportation has identified locations around the state to implement pollinator friendly wildflower roadside  plots. This presentation will include proper soil preparation, native plants and establishing a pollinator friendly habitat. The roadside locations include places the Monarch butterflies migrate through in the fall as they make their way to overwinters spots.  Felicity and GADOT team members will be present to answer your questions before and after the presentation.

Becky Griffin

Gary Bachman

Mississippi State University
Extension/Research Professor of Urban Horticulture
Host of Southern Gardening

Gary Bachman

Bodie Pennisi

Department of Horticulture
Professor, Statewide Extension
Landscape Specialist
University of Georgia

Body Pennisi UGA

Erica Glasener

Nationally recognized Author/Writer/Speaker
Senior Producer of Growing a Greener World – PBS and CREATE TV series and
TV Host/Producer of A Gardener’s Diary – HGTV series

Erica Glasener

Kathy Crye

Horticulturist, Former Manager of Callaway Gardens Pollinator Garden and developer of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Trail at Callaway Gardens

Kathy Crye

Ernest Koone

The largest grower of native azaleas in the United States and also is a landscape designer for some very well-known gardens.

Ernest Koone