TRANSITION TIME By Henni Cohen

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2026 Napa Valley Chapter CNPS newsletter.

As many of you know, I have been an active member of the Napa Valley Chapter of CNPS since 2008. We had moved to Napa a year earlier to a one-acre property that I was initially inclined to leave ‘natural,’ with oak trees and manzanitas and tall grass. Then, I received a notice of a workshop on designing and creating a native plant garden to be held in the Martha Walker Garden and led by Kathleen Chasey, the Garden curator and a landscape designer. I signed up, and the rest is history.

I started volunteering in the Garden, learning the names of plants and how to care for them and helping with the plant sales. I was asked to be president of the chapter in 2011, and since then have filled almost every role in the management of the Chapter. It has been a real privilege to have been able to support the Chapter in a way that has deepened my knowledge of and commitment to the conservation and promotion of native plants as part of my efforts on behalf of environmental and climate causes.

It is now time for me to pass the baton (or gavel) of the presidency. I am happy to announce that Carrie Strohl has accepted the position as president. Carrie is a dynamic leader with years of experience running non-profit organizations with a focus on native plants and the preservation of the Monarch butterflies and environmental education. For those of you who do not know Carrie, she bought her first narrow leaf milkweed plant from our chapter sale in 2011 and has never looked back. She is a perennial member of CNPS and has been active in the CNPS Chapter Council since 2024. She is looking forward to continuing the important work of our chapter and collaborating with chapter leaders to make native plants even more accessible to the community.

I am assuming the role of past-president and will continue to work closely with Carrie and the Chapter. Please consider how you can participate in supporting the Chapter. There are many roles that don’t need you to know the names of the plants, but that the Chapter needs to run smoothly. For more information, contact me at henni@napavalleycnps.org or Carrie at cstrohl@cnps.org.