The Georgia Grassland Initiative aims to motivate action, instill inspiration, and support change on behalf of native plants. We want to help people know and sincerely value native plants of Georgia, which helps to keep common species common and invasive species out. Few people see the value of plants and their role in maintaining animal biodiversity, which the Georgia Grassland Initiative aims to change. We want to help people see how plants are essential to daily lives.

When to Wear Masks for Pandemic Safety:
• When traveling in a vehicle with a person who does not live with you. Also, helps to travel with window down.
• When outside try to maintain 6 ft distance between yourself and a non-resident of your home. Wear mask if you have to work in closer proximity.

Safety first: Wear brightly colored (orange, yellow, neon green) safety vests and work during well-lit daytime hours.
• Target National Forests, State Parks, and powerline/gasline rights of way. These are places where native plants are managed and protected. Priority suites of species include sun-loving wildflowers and grasses that support pollinators, other beneficial insects, and birds. Think grassland Genera like Asclepias, Baptisia, Monarda, Phlox, Penstemon, Rudbeckia, Coreopsis, Helianthus, Aster, Symphyotrichum, Silphium, Eryngium, Parthenium, Pityopsis, Arundinaria, and warm season grasses. Think fruiting shrubs that birds love like Vaccinium (Blueberries) and Prunus (Plums). For a list of target species and for training videos, visit our websites www.botgarden.uga.edu and www.georgiagrasslandsinitiative.org.
• Avoid private property, and areas with clearly posted NO TRESPASSING signs.
• Gear up – wear proper toe-covered shoes, hat, long pants recommended. Consider pegging your pants into your socks for that “cool botanist look” but also to help prevent chigger bites. Consider spraying your shoes, socks, and pantes with insect repellant. Bring and drink water and eat snacks.
• Go with a friend – don’t go into the field along unless you are scouting sites and not leaving your car. Field work is for pairs for safety. Things can happen (a stumble and a twisted ankle, for example).
• Check the National Forest website before going into the field. Check for prescribed burn days, closed roads, other field hazards like wind advisories. https://www.fs.usda.gov/conf

When working roadside sites:
• Avoid highways, large state roads, areas with short or low shoulders. Avoid roads where the speed limit is over 50mph. Pull your car completely off of the road and onto the “safety strip.” Consider leaving a note on your dashboard if you think you will be away from your vehicle, out of site. – Perhaps write “photographing wildflowers for research.”
• Avoid dawn and dusk working hours. Motorist's vision is more affected in these more dimly lit times.

What, When, and How of Photo Documenting:
• Try to target species during their flowering season.
• Greatly aids identification and accuracy
• Take clear, detailed and informative photos so that the plants traits are visible
• Photo flowers so that full flower is in frame. Also, take close-ups of certain families such as Asteraceae to show detail or ray and disk flowers
• Stem/stalk photos to show: Presence/absence of hairs, Orientation of leaves along the stem (maybe at a downward pointing 45-degree angle), Basal rosette if present, Photo of leaf to show vein pattern and serrations and also a photo of the back side of the leaf, Clear photo showing how the leaf attaches to the main stem of the plant. Show if leaf is sessile or has petiole. Show stipules, nodes, buds

Protection of site information – For now, cloaked is our default setting.
• Cloak the exact location of sites. Follow up at a later date and after checking with a higher up if it is ok to uncloak the location.
• Protects accidental treks onto private property and helps protect unseen or unknown but present rare/endangered species.

Interactions with public – You are an ambassador for native plants.
• If asked, you are taking pictures of wildflowers and other native plants and any insects visiting those flowers. Questions are a chance to share enthusiasm for native plants, native insects and birds that rely on those plants. We are just documenting what is on the land in Georgia in this project.
• People may stop and ask you if you need help. People may ask you to move your car off their land. Best default is to move yourself along if you get any pushback from a landowner. We are staying on rights of way. We do not walk into private property. We have a “no take” policy, no taking of plants nor seeds nor divisions nor roots nor flower bouquets. Flowers are reproductive, and we need these plants reproducing on site, even/especially in highly modified roadside or other rights-of-way habitats.