Plant pollinator habitat at home

Wanting to add more pollinator habitat at home? Look no further: native plant seed packets are available again in Petersburg! You can find displays at the Petersburg Public Library, 1st and 3rd Boutique, the Talisman, and the Crazy Daisy Gift Shop. This year we are offering 13 colorful species collected from the plantings on Petersburg’s square, Historic Wayside Park and our members’ own gardens and prairies. The packets are free, but we welcome donations that support Menard County Trails & Greenways. The displays will be restocked until we run out!

Wondering how to choose? 

Check out blog posts highlighting the available species:

Lanceleaf Coreopsis, Purple Prairie Clover, Golden Alexanders

Small Yellow Wild Indigo, Butterfly Milkweed, Blue Star

Black-eyed Susan, Rattlesnake Master, Purple Coneflower

Swamp Milkweed, Sneezeweed, Aromatic aster

We’ve added one new species to the mix this year: Wild quinine. More on that species soon!

Wondering how to plant them? 

Follow the detailed planting instructions on the back of each packet, and check out this blog post with instructions on the winter sowing method. Also– watch for an announcement about upcoming winter sowing workshops where we’ll have these species and many more to share!

Scary Invasive Plants in Your Landscape

Scarier than goblins, witches and ghosts are all the invasive plants we have planted in our yards and gardens! This Halloween we bring you a post about the horrors of invasive plants in your landscape.

Some of our Menard County Trails & Greenways members have already been hard at work on the restoration efforts at New Salem in recent weeks. With the arrival of cooler temperatures, we’ll be scheduling volunteer work days soon! Be watching our Facebook page or your email if you’re an MCTG member for those dates. If you’d like to contribute to our forest restoration efforts at New Salem, but you can’t make it to our work days, there is still something you can do to help: remove invasive garden plants in your own yard!

There are many problematic plants still being sold in garden centers for use as landscape plants and seeds from those plants end up growing at New Salem and in other natural areas. Here are some of the worst offenders: Continue reading “Scary Invasive Plants in Your Landscape”

Garlic Mustard Pulls at New Salem

Why do we pull garlic mustard?

Each garlic mustard plant grows pods called siliques and each plant produces on average 22 siliques, each silique containing as many as 28 seeds. That is over 600 seeds on an average per plant, with some particularly robust plants producing almost 8,000 seeds. That’s why it is so important to remove the plant before it sets seed.

garlic mustard plants
There are at least 50 plants in this photo. 50 x 22 x 28 = over 30,000 potential seeds !!

Continue reading “Garlic Mustard Pulls at New Salem”

Pollinator Plants for Your Garden — Part 4

This post wraps up our 4 part blog series describing 12 easy-to-grow plants for attracting pollinators (butterflies, bees, etc) to your garden. View earlier blog posts here.

The final three plants described in the post are swamp milkweed, sneezeweed and aromatic aster. All 12 species discussed in the series are available for free (while supplies last!) a locations around Petersburg–see December 12th blog for details. Continue reading “Pollinator Plants for Your Garden — Part 4”

Pollinator Plants for Your Garden – Part 2

Pollinator Planting on Petersburg Square

This is Part 2 of a 4 part blog series describing 12 easy-to-grow plants for attracting pollinators (butterflies, bees, etc) to your garden. If you missed Part 1 last week, you can read it here. The 12 species discussed in the series are all available for free (while supplies last!)–see December 12th blog, Create Your Own Pollinator Habitat at Home, for details. Continue reading “Pollinator Plants for Your Garden – Part 2”

Pollinator Plants for your Garden – Part 1

This is the first of a 4 part blog series describing 12 easy-to-grow plants for attracting pollinators (butterflies, bees, etc) to your garden. In addition, most of the species provide birds with seed in the winter–so don’t cut back plants until late spring!! The 12 species are all available for free (while supplies last!)–see December 12th blog, Create Your Own Pollinator Habitat at Home, for details.

Each Thursday through January 5th we’ll feature 3 of the 12 plants with detailed descriptions of the plants as well as specific sowing instructions. Note however, for those that say to direct sow in spring, you may actually direct sow them in late fall/winter.  In nature the seeds would go through winter and just come up when they’re ready. If you’re late fall/winter sowing a bunch of plants, it’s kind of convenient to just do them all the same way! Continue reading “Pollinator Plants for your Garden – Part 1”

Invasive Species at New Salem State Historic Site

Regular forest management is necessary to deal with invasive species that have displaced so much of our native flora.

It is very exciting to kick off our habitat restoration work at New Salem Historic Site in partnership with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources! While the site is best known and visited for the recreated village where Lincoln once lived, much of the site is forested land, from the floodplains along the Sangamon River to the upland forests crisscrossed by several miles of hiking trails. Like most natural areas, regular management is necessary to deal with invasive species that have displaced so much of our native flora. Continue reading “Invasive Species at New Salem State Historic Site”

Leaves of three, let it be….

poison ivy

Leaves of three, let it be… but leaves of three are not always a sign of danger!

There are many beneficial native plants with trifoliate leaves that are completely benign. Speaking of beneficial native plants, poison ivy IS extremely beneficial for wildlife. The flowers are visited by bees, the leaves are hosts for several moth caterpillars and browsed occasionally by mammals, and probably most importantly, the white berries feed dozens of bird species. Of course, the birds are then responsible for its wide distribution, much to the dismay of all who react to the irritating urushiol oil, present in all parts of the plant.

Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) can form a bush, creep along the ground, or grow as a climbing vine. It can be recognized by the glossy, toothed, trifoliate leaves. New growth sometimes has a reddish tinge. Fall coloring is often a brilliant orange. The vines are often covered in course hairs and aerial rootlets that allow them to cling to trees, fences, etc.

(Click on images to open larger format.)

Now for a few native species that can be confused with poison ivy: Continue reading “Leaves of three, let it be….”