By Marsha Gebhardt I am the lucky caregiver for a seven-month-old Missouri natives garden. As with children, seven-month-olds bring wonder, worry, and a need for much education and effort. It is not easy to walk the Missouri Evening Primrose path, but it is a walk filled with pleasure and purpose….
By Marsha Gebhardt On June 4th, local radio station KWMU’s program St. Louis on the Air had an excellent discussion of the benefits of using native plants. “Using native plants is environmentally friendly because it works within the existing ecosystem,” explained Jean Ponzi, Green Resources Manager at the EarthWays Center of the Missouri Botanical…
Our June meeting was at the home of author and college professor, Dave Tylka and his wife, Karen. Their yard includes shade and prairie gardens, glade habitat, a rain garden, and a water feature. Dave’s book, Native Landscaping for Wildlife and People, is a “must read” for native gardeners in the Midwest. If…
By Mitch Leachman The St. Louis Audubon Society’s Bring Conservation Home program was created in 2012. It gives individual landowners in the St. Louis region specific advice on how to create bird- and pollinator-friendly habitat in their own yards. A number of the program’s volunteer Habitat Advisors are Wild Ones members,…
By Ed Schmidt Squaw weed, also known as round-leaved ragwort, has beautiful yellow flowers in the spring, and the leaves make an attractive ground cover. It thrives in shade, and tolerates fairly dry conditions. On the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Plantfinder, it gets 4 stars. Originally designated as Senecio obovatus, the…
By Nellie Brown It’s not because the tree is in the holiday spirit. The “ornaments” are actually bagworms. The caterpillars eat an extremely wide range of plants (128 species), from arborvitae to maples. They can be devastating on many woody ornamentals, including many plants in your yard. The eggs hatch…
By Marsha Gebhardt I highly recommend attending one or more of the Friday Greener Gardens series at Shaw Nature Reserve. This is a new series for SNR; they call it an “experiment.” I attended the first one on a beautiful April evening. After sharing food and drink and a bit…
By Scott Barnes At the June yard tour, Dave Tylka talked about a caterpillar that ate all the leaves on his Indigo plant last year. I had the same problem, and was surprised to learn I wasn’t alone. The caterpillar belongs to the Broom Moth. I looked them up and learned…
By Kathryn Jepsen A free, informative field day for land managers, land owners and other resource professionals interested in woodland restoration. See first-hand what Missouri Master Naturalists, St. Charles County Parks and Recreation, and their partners are doing to restore the county’s woodland and prairie communities. Learn about the resources…
By Susan Lanigan See first-hand how other St. Louisans have integrated sustainable practices and beauty into their little piece of Earth. The 2014 Sustainable Backyard Tour is a self-guided, open-house-style tour of over 40 yards. This is a great opportunity to see examples of outdoor sustainable living—from organic gardening to rain gardens and mud ovens. Read descriptions…
