Wednesday January 13, 2021
Gardening for Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths!)
The program will show the diversity of the butterflies and moths one can attract to their home landscape in the Twin Cities including the host plants for their caterpillars and nectar plants/food sources for the adults. You will learn about gardening techniques that provide garden habitat for butterflies and moths as many have unique strategies for overwintering. Also learn about butterfly and moth population status and other impacts to them including misuse of pesticides.
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Alan J. Branhagen is Director of Operations at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. For over 20 years he was Director of Horticulture at Powell Gardens, Kansas City’s Botanical Garden and prior to that he had a nearly decade-long duty as Deputy Director of Resource Development for the Winnebago County Forest Preserve District in Rockford, Illinois. Alan Branhagen received his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Iowa State University and a Master of Landscape Architecture from Louisiana State University with emphasis on design with nature. He wrote The Gardener’s Butterfly Book in 2001 and in November 2016, Timber Press published his book Native Plants of the Midwest. The Midwest Native Plant Primer: 225 Plants for an Earth-friendly Garden was released in July, 2020. Beyond public garden management, Mr. Branhagen is an all-around plantsman and naturalist specializing in birds, butterflies and botany. He is in process of creating a new natural garden on 2.4 acres overlooking the Minnesota River Valley in Chaska, Minnesota.
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Join the meeting via Zoom at 7 pm, January 13th by clicking on this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87994175006
Wednesday February 10, 2021
Phytoremediation With Native Plants: How Native Plants Can Be Used to Clean Up Environmental Contaminants
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Environmental Project Manager Eric Fuselier will discuss how to use native woody and herbaceous plants to improve soil, air, and water quality, and remove environmental contaminants from soil, air, and water. The presentation is designed for green industry professionals and technical information will be presented. The ideas and concepts presented can be applied to a wide range of project types, from residential and commercial landscape design, to large-scale environmental remediation projects.
Eric Fuselier is an Environmental Project Manager at Crafton Tull where he works with civil engineers and landscape architects to select native plant species for the rain gardens, bioswales, detention ponds, and commercial development projects they design. Eric is currently serving as the President of the Ozark Chapter of Wild Ones in northwest Arkansas, a non-profit organization dedicated to ”promoting environmentally sound landscaping practices to preserve biodiversity through the preservation, restoration and establishment of native plant communities.” Join the meeting via Zoom at 7 pm, February 10th by clicking on this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86429715249
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Wednesday March 10, 2021
Deep Oak Savanna
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This presentation explores the deep meaning of oak savanna, from an ecological standpoint, one of earths most amazing ecosystems ever. Stephen will begin by providing a definition for savanna and reinforcing the concept via a planetary field trip, in time and space, to witness an ontological theme and variation thereof, and to expose savanna as the most advanced, diverse, and provisional terrestrial ecosystem ever. He will then focus on our regional Midwest savannas and conduct enthralling natural histories of keystone species and their reinforcing roles of the savanna configuration. The presentation covers the recent demise of savanna and associated drivers, and also, why losing this powerful ecosystem, from a planetary perspective, poses a threat to livability. The presentation then shifts to savanna restoration, from ground layer flora to shrubs and canopy trees, from buffalo to goats, and from large scale preserves to lawnscapes. Emerging concepts of silvoculture and working lands are discussed. Throughout the presentation, a powerful array of scientific principles are rendered via fascinating stories concerning our native savanna flora and fauna, feedbacks and ecosystem phenomenology, in ways which provide the audience a deep ecology and sense of wonder for oak savanna.
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Stephen Thomforde has 28 years and 10,000 acres experience in design, implementation and maintenance of ecological restorations throughout the Midwest. This includes a decade of post graduate research at UW-Madison from which emerged a framework for ecological restoration in the 21st century and the first regional concepts based on State Transition Models, Working Lands, and Restoration of Ecosystem Services. For the past 15 years, his passion, work and research has focused on savanna ecosystems, from the scale of lawns to a model for future agricultural production. Stephen lives in Minneapolis, farms in Zumborta, and plays outside throughout the Midwest.
Join the meeting via Zoom at 7 pm, March 10th by clicking on this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82246062202
Wednesday April 14, 2021
Notes from Underground: Ants in the Prairie
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While many ant species worldwide go unnoticed, ants consist of a large biomass with more than 15,000 species named. Populations of these insects have been discovered on every continent except for Antarctica. As a part of the food chain, they eat waste products that other animals won’t eat and some species are important predators of other insect species. They move plant seeds around for dispersal. They also aerate the soil when they form a hole during their excavations. They’re part of the whole picture and complexity of an ecosystem. Grassland ants all nest underground, but during the growing season, most live nearer and become active at the surface or even above ground level, where the flourish of prairie life is in such vibrant force. |
Dr. James Trager has graduate degrees in entomology specializing in ant research, but has always been broadly interested in the natural history of terrestrial ecosystems. After a 10-year stint as a research entomologist in Florida, Brazil and Argentina, family matters brought him to Missouri, and he found employment as the interpretive naturalist and ecological restoration biologist at Shaw Nature Reserve near St. Louis, where he worked for 28.5 years, until he retired during the summer of 2019 (though staying on as an instructor and volunteer in the restoration program). He is currently working on a guide to the approximately 150 species of Missouri ants, frequently interrupted by “Zooming” off to entomology and other sorts of nature talks, even occasionally giving one himself. Lately he has become enchanted with a granddaughter, born in August, whom he hopes to influence as a student or at least a lover of nature.
Join the meeting via Zoom at 7 pm, April 14th by clicking on this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87243831159
Wednesday May 12, 2021
Fundamentals of Garden Layers: Plant Communities, Ecosystem Function, and Climate Resilience
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Benjamin will explore what plant layers are in naturalistic garden design, how to mimic these layers based on observations in nature, native plants to use in each layer, and how to manage this kind of garden.
Benjamin Vogt is the author of A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future and the forthcoming book, Prairie Up: An Introduction to Natural Garden Design (2022, University of Illinois Press). |
Monarch Gardens is Benjamin Vogt. His 5,000' home garden on a 1/4 acre lot has been featured in Fine Gardening, Garden Design, The American Gardener, Nebraska Life, the Omaha World Herald, and the Lincoln Journal Star. For five years (2012-2017) Benjamin wrote an award-winning garden column for Houzz (over 3 million reads with 200 articles) and has contributed to books such as Lawn Gone! and Pollinator Friendly Gardening. You'll find his freelance photography and writing in several publications, including The Xerces Society's Gardening for Butterflies (Timber Press), as well as Orion Magazine, Northern Gardener, APLD's The Designer, Fix, Fine Gardening, and many others. He has been interviewed for dozens of podcasts, articles, and books while speaking nationally on environmental activism and sustainable urban design for wildlife.
Benjamin is a former board member of the Wachiska Audubon Society, a prairie conservation and wildlife organization overseeing 1,000 acres in southeast Nebraska. He also runs the Facebook page Milk the Weed, a lively space where 12,000 folks share the joys and purpose of gardening for wildlife. Benjamin has an M.F.A. (Ohio State) and Ph.D. (Nebraska) in English and has taught over fifty college classes for which he's received multiple awards. You'll find his essays in anthologies like The Tallgrass Prairie Reader, Natural Treasures of the Great Plains, and Prairie Gold, while his Pushcart Prize nominated poems have appeared in over sixty publications. He is the author of three poetry collections and two unpublished memoirs -- the memoirs are based on family & gardening as well as homesteading the prairie environment in the 1800s.
Benjamin lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife, son, and four cats.
Benjamin is a former board member of the Wachiska Audubon Society, a prairie conservation and wildlife organization overseeing 1,000 acres in southeast Nebraska. He also runs the Facebook page Milk the Weed, a lively space where 12,000 folks share the joys and purpose of gardening for wildlife. Benjamin has an M.F.A. (Ohio State) and Ph.D. (Nebraska) in English and has taught over fifty college classes for which he's received multiple awards. You'll find his essays in anthologies like The Tallgrass Prairie Reader, Natural Treasures of the Great Plains, and Prairie Gold, while his Pushcart Prize nominated poems have appeared in over sixty publications. He is the author of three poetry collections and two unpublished memoirs -- the memoirs are based on family & gardening as well as homesteading the prairie environment in the 1800s.
Benjamin lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife, son, and four cats.
Wednesday October 13, 2021
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Still Searching for Minnesota’s Native Wildflowers, Even in our Own BackyardsMeet Phyllis Root and Kelly Povo, authors of Searching for Minnesota’s Native Wildflowers; A Guide for Beginners, Botanist and Everyone in Between.
Learn about why they are crazy about native wildflowers, where they search and (sometimes) find them, and why they are also planting them in their own backyards. You’ll learn where to look, when to go, and how to find some of Minnesota’s little-known native wildflower treasures. They will also share stories of their own adventures (and misadventures). Phyllis Root is a writer, Kelly Povo is a photographer, and they love searching for, learning about, and finding Minnesota’s native flowers. Their first wildflower adventure together was over ten years ago, to Big Bog State Recreation Area, where they walked on the boardwalk a mile into the bog and saw plants they had never seen before. Since then, they have waded rivers, slipped down snowy hillsides, and visited more places than they can remember. Phyllis, an award-winning author, has written many picture books about Minnesota, including Big Belching Bog, Plant a Pocket of Prairie, One North Star, and most recently, The Lost Forest, all published by the University of Minnesota Press. Kelly, a professional photographer for over thirty years, has exhibited in galleries and art shows across the country. Her photographs have been published on posters, calendars, note cards, and in books. They have collaborated on several books, including Girlfriend Gumbo and Gladys on the Go. Whatever they are doing, Phyllis and Kelly laugh—a lot. |