By Sue Leahy
Board Member at Large and Outreach Coordinator
Meet the 2020 Wild Ones St. Louis Landscape Challenge winner, 15-year old Ryan Cutrell
A sophomore at Pattonville High School, Ryan has loved science and nature for as long as he can remember. In the seventh grade, his science teacher showed his class Leonardo de Caprio’s documentary “Before the Flood” about global warming. He came home and immediately started chopping honeysuckle in the subdivision common ground behind his fence. Within weeks of starting to remove honeysuckle, he met two Bring Conservation Home volunteers at a city event, and he encouraged his parents to plant natives. With the help of the entire family, his yard achieved Silver certification last fall.
In the last two years he has removed about 2000 square feet of honeysuckle. He replaced it with native plants and seeds, with help from the St. Louis Native Plant Swap Group on Facebook and a supportive neighbor who gave him money to buy natives. Ryan arranged for the City of Maryland Heights to pick up debris he cut during the pandemic, allowing him to cut more down. The Maryland Heights Parks Supervisor invited Ryan to work with him to remove honeysuckle in city parks and he plans to do that next winter.
Ryan is glad to be a member of Wild Ones to be able to talk with others about native plants. He is enthusiastic about the environment and has gotten his whole family excited about the mission “to heal the earth.” He looks forward to being able to show off his new front yard, promoting natives to the neighbors and getting young people involved in the native plant movement.
Grow Native! provides the funds to pay for plants for the Landscape Challenge with the expectation that the receiving chapter will administer the challenge, find a garden designer and supply volunteers to do the planting. They offered funds this year for both the St. Louis and St. Charles Area Chapters. Since this is the first year that the St. Charles Area Chapter has done a Landscape Challenge, the St. Louis Chapter has been mentoring them through the process by doing a “joint” competition. St. Charles members sat on the committee which reviewed all applicants and selected both chapter winners. The St. Charles Area Chapter winners are Steve and Patty Berry, who used to be St. Louis Chapter members prior to the establishment of the St. Charles Chapter and are active in many Wild Ones activities.
Congratulations to the winners! The St. Louis chapter anticipates a September planting date for the Cutrell yard and will put out a call for volunteers at the appropriate time.
