Vinca Wars Talk Recorded
Tom Oliver, Danna Olsen, and Marcia Goodrich shared the various armaments they use to combat invasive vinca in their yards, from smothering and pulling to triclopyr and glyphosate. If you missed it and want to learn more, their talk is available on our YouTube channel.
WOK at WOW
Marcia Goodrich and Karen Cayce, WOK president and vice president, gave a series of 13 lightening talks to groups of local sixth graders at LSSI’s Wonders of the Watershed event Oct. 9 at Dee Stadium, Houghton. For kids, the highlight was checking out the huge root system of a small sedge, Carex brevior. We stressed the value of native plants in combatting the two greatest enemies of a watershed, runoff and erosion.
WOK Gear Coming Up
Marcia will be putting in an order for more logo-emblazoned gear in the near future, including t-shirts, aprons, and shopping bags. If you’d like to order a different item, let her know.
Monarchs, Native Plants, and Seed Balls: Presentation Nov. 20 at Calumet Public Library
WOK board member Cassandra Reed-VanDam will join Marcia Wednesday, Nov. 20, at the Calumet Public Library to lead a presentation on the value of native plants to monarch butterflies.
Afterward, we’ll help kids make seed balls with milkweed seeds, so they can be part of saving the monarchs.
Groundcover Program on tap for March
Wisconsin horticulturalist Ken Williams will give a Zoom talk on living mulch–groundcovers–this spring. His talk is tentatively set for March 4.
Photo by Peter M. Dziuk, Minnesota Wildflowers
A Frenzy of Gardening
Members have been going crazy getting the last bit of gardening in before the snow flies. At Kestner Park in Houghton, we installed numerous native shrubs and forbs along the shoreline of Huron Creek. The idea is to prevent erosion and to keep kids from accessing the water, which is polluted by leachate from an old landfill.
Northern Lights Clubhouse in Hancock has been adding plants to its new garden and already has its sites set on expanding into new space, so plans are in the works to start winter sowing.
At Glad Tidings Assembly of God in Hancock, the congregation had their fall work day, planting serviceberries, ninebarks, and tons of coreopsis, pearly everlasting, and purple and gray-headed coneflower. Volunteers installed a pocket prairie and rain garden, plus seeded a raised bed. Karen Cayce says, “We ran out of time before we ran out of plants.”
Volunteers continue to expand gardens around the Nara Chalet in Houghton, adding leftover plants from WOK’s sale plus ninebark seedlings from Kristine Bradof’s yard. Rabbits decimated the native plantings at Hecla Cemetery, unfortunately, but at least they left the monarda and thimbleberries. A couple of work sessions helped tidy up the challenging Tezcuco Street site, with weeds whacked back and seedlings added throughout.