post and photos by Donna Short, Chapter member and volunteer
Nee Kee Nee – The East Stream at Tower Grove Park
Saturday Aug 12 (33 attendees)
Wednesday Aug 16 (42 attendees)
We visited the East Stream at Tower Grove Park – Nee Kee Nee, or “revived water” in the language of the Osage people who once inhabited the land. The stream was covered in the 1910s, reportedly for sanitation reasons. In 2020 they began work on a project to uncover the stream. It now captures storm water from 43 acres of the park. A system of weirs and rain gardens that can capture over an inch of rain in a one-hour weather event, manages stormwater from intakes on Arsenal Street and rejoins the stream 300 feet below the headwaters, creating an exciting example of rainscaping.
The course of the stream is filled with Missouri native plants sourced in partnership with Shaw Nature Reserve, featuring several large-scale rain gardens that slow, filter, and treat rainwater and allow for deep soil infiltration.
Most of the plants are in the second year of maturity and are definitely thriving.
Brown-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba) cluster with a Bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii) border in the foreground
Brown-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba)
There are plants blooming in spring, summer and fall in a natural environment. Shown left is a sample of the summer plants such as:
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), Ox-eye Sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides), Bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix), Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), Downy Skullcap (Scutellaria incana)
Orange Coneflower (Rudbeckia fulgida)
The stream’s headwaters are fed by a user-activated potable water source.
Here David, our guide, explains the goal of the water feature – to provide a nature playscape area. The designers created a safe natural environment for children and adults to experience the natural world by providing potable water to play in and a playscape while preserving Victorian aesthetics.
Penny Holtzmann demonstrates one of the playscape activities
One aim of this project was to interpret the land of this region prior to European settlement. They did this by working closely with representatives from the Osage Nation Historic Preservation Office in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. For each season they selected plants that were used by the Osage people in that season.
Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) with Brown-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba) and found throughout the garden.
A view of the rain garden stream, surrounded by native plants, grasses and sedges
Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)
Sedge (Carex spp.) growing along the stream
Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) growing along the stream
Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) found along the bank
Rose Turtlehead (Chelone obliqua) shown left,
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) shown right
Native seeds were harvested from Shaw Nature Reserve and planted along the stream corridor. In total, 1.9 acres were planted with native seed and there were 9216 perennial plugs, 61 trees and 137 shrubs.
There is no evidence that Osage people lived on the actual tract of land that is now Tower Grove Park (they would have lived closer to the river), but they likely would have hunted there, since this land was all prairie.
Below is a scale model of a village. All Osage villages are arranged in the same manner, typically in the bend of a river. Villages face East, towards the rising sun. In the middle of the village, the lodges of Sky Chief and Earth Chief are placed opposite each other across the road.
Broadleaf Arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia)
This Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) is one of the oldest trees in the park
Field of Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
Tower Grove park has Plants in Bloom pages on their website, which lists the plants flowering by season. The link is East Stream (Nee Kee Nee) — Tower Grove Park. Select the season from the dropdown. You’ll find other summer plants in addition to the ones shown here such as Gray Goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis), Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata), Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), and Baldwin’s Ironweed (Vernonia baldwinii) and more.
If you’d like to volunteer at TGP in the East Stream area, visit the park’s volunteer page for more info.
If you’d like to financially support the The Tower Grove Park Foundation, visit the donation page.
