Everything Nac

SFA Gardens at Stephen F. Austin State University will host the monthly Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 8, in the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center, 2900 Raguet St. in Nacogdoches. Alabama Extension Horticulturist Hayes Jackson will present “I’ve Come All the Way from Alabama to Tell You That Everything’s Not Bigger in Texas So Get Over It.”

Jackson graduated from Auburn University with a degree in landscape design and ornamental horticulture. After working in southern California with Armstrong Nurseries, he returned to Alabama to work on his master’s degree in environmental biology with an emphasis in botany at Jacksonville State University. Hayes is the urban regional extension agent with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System in Anniston where he works with urban horticulture and community-based programs concerning urban horticulture.

An avid horticulturist and true plant collector, Hayes has ventured to places like China, the Himalayas of northern India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Guatemala to look for new plants for Southern landscapes. His gardens have been featured in many publications, including Southern Living and Alabama Gardens Great and Small.

The Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series is held the second Thursday of each month at the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture’s SFA Pineywoods Native Plant Center. A rare plant raffle will be held after the program. The lecture is free and open to the public, but donations to the Theresa and Les Reeves lecture series fund always are appreciated.

Parking is available at the nearby Raguet Elementary School, 2428 Raguet St., with continual shuttle service to the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building.

For more information, call (936) 468-1832 or email grantdamon@sfasu.edu.