EVENTS

Lawns to Legumes has received continued funding through 2022. This State-funded initiative to improve pollinator habitat offers workshops, coaching, planting guides and cost-share funding for installing pollinator-friendly native plantings in residential lawns. The program also campaigns to raise awareness for pollinator habitat projects and establishes demonstration neighborhoods to showcase best practices. The aim of the program is to protect the federally endangered rusty patched bumblebee (Minnesota’s state bee) and other at-risk pollinators.

Dan Shaw, Lawns to Legumes State Project Manager and Senior Ecologist/Vegetation Specialist at the MN Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR)

Brett Stolpestad, Landscape Restoration Senior Technician with the Washington Conservation District (WCD). Brett is a Wild Ones member, a recent graduate of the U of MN’s Master of Landscape Architecture program, and he is taking the lead preparing a 2022 Lawns to Legumes Neighborhood Demonstration grant application for the Conservation District.   

INDIVIDUAL SUPPORT for Lawns to Legumes at Blue Thumb: https://bluethumb.org/lawns-to-legumes/

The Tamarack Nature Preserve in Woodbury is a “bog fen,” a rare wetland combination. Bogs are rain-fed, acidic, and nutrient-poor for plant growth. In contrast, fens are fed at least in part by mineral-rich ground water and have a more basic pH. Different plant species are found in each. But the peat wetland at Tamarack Nature Preserve is a rare combination of both. Here ground water rich in minerals seeps into the bog wetland. Bog and fen plant species occur together.

Nationally recognized botanist and author Dr. Robert Mohlenbrock of Southern Illinois University has visited the Preserve, discovering its interesting ecology and rare mix of plants. Join this Zoom presentation to hear Dr. Mohlenbrock describe what he found in this wetland gem and to discuss how we can protect such special places hidden in our midst.

Tamarack Nature Preserve website: https://www.tamaracknaturepreserve.org

iNaturalist interactive field guide: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/tamarack-nature-preserve-in- woodbury-minnesota

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5777543510pwd=SGZhcnFWbCt3c09EcU04UWhRdWtpZz09 Password if needed: MEP Author Alan Branhagen will highlight the diversity of butterflies and moths you can attract to your Twin Cities home landscape. He'll discuss host plants for caterpillars and nectar plants/food sources for adults. Learn gardening techniques that provide essential habitat for butterflies and moths�"e.g., many have unique strategies for overwintering. Learn the status of butterfly and moth populations and threats, including misuse of pesticides. Alan Branhagen is Director of Operations at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Previously he served as Director of Horticulture at Powell Gardens, Kansas City's Botanical Garden. Alan received a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Iowa State University and a Master's of Landscape Architecture from Louisiana State University with emphasis on design with nature. He has written The Gardener's Butterfly Book (2001), Native Plants of the Midwest (2016), and The Midwest Native Plant Primer: 225 Plants for an Earth-friendly Garden (2020). In addition to his public garden management, Alan is an all-around plantsman and naturalist, specializing in birds, butterflies and botany. He is creating a new natural garden on 2.4 acres overlooking the Minnesota River Valley in Chaska, Minnesota.

Four unique biomes converge within Minnesota along a southwest to northeast continuum. Prior to Euro-American settlement, the four contiguous biomes included prairie grassland in southwest and west, tallgrass aspen parkland in the northwest, boreal forest in the northeast, and a mixture of oak savanna, oak woodland, and deciduous forest sandwiched in the middle of these western and eastern biomes. These landscapes have since been radically altered and, with the climate warming, what does the future have in store for Minnesota’s landscape and remaining biome fragments? The presentation will look into the past to understand these biomes at the time of Euro-American settlement, and discuss how Native Americans managed and influenced the composition of the biomes with the regular use of fire. Pivoting to look into the future using projected climate modeling, Heather will address the ecological conditions today, focusing on oak ecosystems and grasslands, then paint a picture of what a functional, biodiverse, and resilient landscape may look like in the future, and what actions are needed to achieve these outcomes.
 
Heather Holm is a pollinator conservationist and award-winning author who spends much of her time passionately educating audiences about the fascinating world of native bees and the native plants that support them. Her first book, Pollinators of Native Plants was published in 2014, and her second book, Bees: An Identification and Native Plant Forage Guide, published in 2017, has won six book awards including the 2018 American Horticultural Society Book Award. Her latest book, Wasps, Their Biology, Diversity and Role as Beneficial Insects and Pollinators of Native Plants, was published in February 2021. Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native pollinators and native plants, and the natural history and biology of native bees and predatory wasps occurring in the Upper Midwest and Northeast.
 
Heather is a National Honorary Director of Wild Ones. She also serves on the board of the Friends of Cullen Nature Preserve and Bird Sanctuary. In her spare time, Heather is an active community supporter, writing grants and coordinating neighborhood volunteer landscape restoration projects. Currently, she is working on three projects with volunteers, restoring approximately ten acres of city-owned park land in her neighborhood for pollinators and people.
 

Landscape Revival brings local gardeners looking for native plants together with growers who don’t use systemic insecticides.

Purchase a wide variety of native plants from six native plant nurseries. For a list of growers and their web links, see "Details" below.

At our kid-friendly Expo, learn to select and grow native plants for pollinators, wildlife, and water quality. Visit with educators and experts from conservation and environmental organizations. Get your garden and landscaping questions answered. Learn about butterflies, dragonflies, and bees.

Details: https://www.saintpaulaudubon.org/event/landscape-revival-oakdale/

Landscape Revival brings local gardeners looking for native plants together with growers who don’t use systemic insecticides.

Purchase a wide variety of native plants from six native plant nurseries. For a list of growers and their web links, see "Details" below.

At our kid-friendly Expo, learn to select and grow native plants for pollinators, wildlife, and water quality. Visit with educators and experts from conservation and environmental organizations. Get your garden and landscaping questions answered. Learn about butterflies, dragonflies, and bees.

Details: https://www.saintpaulaudubon.org/event/landscape-revival-shoreview/

Leslie Pilgrim has spent the past decade working with her local city and county governments, school district, and others to "claim dirt" wherever she can. While the process has been complex and frustrating at times, the rewards have made the journey worthwhile. From a 1/2 acre city roadside boulevard planting, county roadside native vegetation demonstration project, city curb-cut raingarden program, schoolyard forest, and more, each incremental project introduces an elevated local awareness of the importance of nativescapes.
 

Leslie is the founder of Neighborhood Greening, a non-profit dedicated to community environmental education and stewardship. Founded in 2017, the non-profit publishes the free ezine, The Buttterfly Effect, which is sent to thousands of subscribers residing in the East Coast, Midwest and Southern Canada. She is also co-president of Wild Ones Twin Cities, editor of her chapter's ezine, Wild Ones Reflections, writes a Substack column called "Life in the Anthropocene", and is the co-founder of Roots in the Ground Mendota Heights, a community initiative formed to get 5,000 new trees planted in the city to replace the thousands of trees which will be lost to EAB.