Boonville’s Vine Clad Garden Club is this year’s host for the central district meeting of the Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri. About 75 members from the Central District of the FGCM attended the meeting, held today at Immanuel Lutheran Church. The meeting’s theme was “Faces of Fall.”

The meeting’s guest speaker is associate professor Nadia Navarrete-Tindall, Extension Specialist of Native Plants at Lincoln University, Cooperative Research and Extension.

Navarrete-Tindall’s degrees include a B.S. Agronomy, a M.S. Forestry and Ph.D. in Plant Biology. She conducts research on native plants to evaluate their potential in landscaping and conservation. She is involved in outreach and education for students, farmers, teachers, and the general public; she assists minority farmers to advance their awareness about grants and programs available to maintain sustainability in farms. Her appointment is 80 percent Extension work and 20 percent research.

She receives funding from the Missouri Department of Conservation, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Prairie Fork Trust, USDA CSREES, and USDA Forest Service to conduct research on native cool season grasses and natural area restoration.

Navarrete-Tindall organizes bilingual presentations about wildlife, native plants, and other conservation topics. She has been the president of the Columbia Chapter of the Native Plant Society, a group that promotes awareness of the local flora, and was awarded the Master Conservation Award in 2008 by the Missouri Conservation Commission.

Locally, the Vine Clad Garden Club’s membership includes Carol Cox, Cynthia Florek, Mary Harris-Koth, Joyce Roach, Sylvia Springer, Barbara Stevens, Sharon Walther, Mildred Werle, Opal Wiseman and Peggy Wright.