Garden Educates Visitors on Native Plants

MGVs planned a wildflower garden, did the original planting, and continue to maintain the garden at Rib Mountain State Park. The garden features Wisconsin wildflowers with each plant having an identification label and QR code. As flowers change through the growing season, parents have multiple opportunities to show their children what is native to Wisconsin. Over 300,000 park visitors see the highly visible wildflower garden as they enter the park.

Teaching Square Foot Gardening

Spacing seeds and plants in a square foot vegetable garden an be a challenge for kids, but if they use a template and shake organic flour over the template each planting space will be marked with a white dot. Using a template made of plastic helps positioning seeds accurately. Flour in a pint water bottle gives kids easy hands on marking system that can be fun. The template worked great for the special needs children. Templates are cut out of a 4’x8’ sheet of white plastic paneling with appropriately spaced quarter inch holes. Pictures of the vegetables suited for each of the four different square foot spacing patterns are taped to the appropriate template.

Residents Get Answers to Gardening Questions

Marathon County residents find answers to their home horticulture questions by asking a MGV at the Garden Clinic or Garden Line. Hundreds of problems are resolved every year. Many questions deal with the trees in the homeowners yard. This year the lily beetle (Lilioceris lilii, that only eats true lilies and fritillaries), was of great concern and many questions were answered about this new invasive pest.