More educational opportunities

Know Maintenance Natives Location: Bowood Farms Date: Saturday, February 25 Time: 2 PM Cost:  Free All natives aren’t unruly. Some behave quite nicely in the garden with beautiful blooms too. A little attention is all they need to promote flowering and control reseeding and aggressiveness. Come learn about the unique…

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St. Louis Garden Blitz with Doug Tallamy – March 3

Attend a day of seminars, demonstrations, exhibits and workshops featuring both nationally and locally-recognized horticulture professionals. This event is produced by the Horticulture Co-op of Metro St. Louis and the Missouri Botanical Garden, in association with the St. Louis Master Gardeners.

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Pagoda Dogwood mystery

What’s going on with my Pagoda Dogwood?  On many branches, the top looks normal but the bottom seems to have been attacked by some critter.  After last night’s talk, my first thought is bees, but our speaker didn’t mention any bees using live branches for nests.  There seem to be…

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Native Plant School – 2012 schedule

The Native Plant School, co-sponsored by St. Louis Wild Ones, is a year-round series of mostly outdoor learning sessions in the Whitmire Wildflower Garden at Shaw Nature Reserve. They will cover various aspects of native home landscaping and prairie/savanna/wetland re-establishment. Please bring your questions, comments, photos, drawings, plant specimens, etc….

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Kudos to Jeanne Cablish

We’re fortunate to have Jeanne Cablish, owner of Native Landscaping by Jeanne as an active member of St. Louis Wild Ones. She was especially active last fall. For starters, she designed the layout for the 2011 Landscape Challenge in Chesterfield.

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Ticks and bush honeysuckle

Editor’s note:  Looking for more motivation to get rid of bush honeysuckle?  Or perhaps you’d like to tell your neighbors about the importance of removing invasive species?  Judy Ward shared this article about a study done at Washington University. WUSTL scientists says suburban influx of deer, invasive plants are affecting…

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Frost flowers

Kathy Bildner shared these photos of frost flowers on White Crownbeard (Verbesina virginica) in her backyard. Click an image for a larger version.

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Early prairies of St. Louis

Editor’s note: You may not wish to read all of this, but just read the part about the area in which you live.  Click map images for a larger version, or email me at brighoff@charter.net for copies of the map you can scale. At Laclede’s Landing, the foot of Market Street, the…

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Grandfather knows best

by Erin Scottberg A grandpa’s sage advice may be the biggest breakthrough in bug repellent since DEET. Scientists with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have isolated two insect‑repelling compounds from leaves of the American beautyberry plant (Callicarpa americana), a shrub native to much of the southeastern United States.

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