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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…
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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…
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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.
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Winter Seed Sowing Check In
Time to check in with our winter sowers! In the past few weeks, we’ve seen a lot of seedling germination. There is some variation, so it may have taken some containers a long time to show anything, but by now they should all have germinated and growing! Removing the Tops and Watering The weather has been pretty erratic this month, with some very warm days and some very cold nights. Up to this point, the top of the milk jug or container lid has helped to retain moisture and protect seedlings from temperature extremes and wind. Now that the temperatures have turned quite warm some days, it is important to…
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Winter Seed Sowing
Winter seed sowing is a great way to grow most native plants! The seeds of many native species require cold, moist stratification to germinate. This occurs naturally when a seed falls on the soil and goes through an average Illinois winter. These conditions can be mimicked in the refrigerator with a moist paper towel or a spoonful of sand, planting the seeds after meeting the required time for stratification of a particular species. Winter sowing is an even simpler option—great for gardeners of all levels of experience. Planting in a milk jug or other recycled container gives seedlings a head start, as the containers create a mini-greenhouse to trap heat,…
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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.
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Pollinator Plants for Your Garden — Part 3
This is Part 3 of a 4 part blog series describing 12 easy-to-grow plants for attracting pollinators (butterflies, bees, etc) to your garden. If you missed Parts 1 and 2, you can read Part 1 here; read Part 2 here. The 12 species discussed in the series are all available for free (while supplies last!) a locations around Petersburg–see December 12th blog, Create Your Own Pollinator Habitat at Home, for details.
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Pollinator Plants for Your Garden – Part 2
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.
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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…
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Create Your Own Pollinator Habitat at Home
Wanting to add more pollinator habitat at home? Look no further: native plant seed packets will be available in Petersburg this week! 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 a dozen colorful species collected primarily from the plantings on Petersburg’s square. 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? Follow along as we highlight these 12 species in upcoming posts! Wondering how to plant them? Follow the detailed planting instructions on the…
