Happy Spring. A few announcements pertaining to Wild Ones events and activities you'll want to make note of:

1. Group plant orders are due to me (Carol) by this Friday, May 11. The opportunity to purchase plants through Wild Ones at significant discount is a membership benefit. If you are not yet a member but are planning to purchase some native plants this year, the savings may equal or exceed the cost of membership. Please feel free to contact me at carol_andrews@hotmail.com for more information on the plant order, a price list and becoming a member. You can join on-line at www.for-wild.org anytime.

2. On May 16 there are not one but TWO options for getting out and enjoying the great outdoors. Our annual spring wildflower hike will start at 6:00 PM at Jay Cooke State park. Meet near the swinging bridge by the main park HQ building. Please see Mark from Hartley's announcement below for more info. If you'd like a ride from Duluth or arrange other carpooling, let me know.

On May 16 Bob Olen, local extension educator, has also coordinated the first of hopefully many white pine planting projects. Bob is looking for adult volunteers to help children and their families correctly plant 50 to 75 white pine seedlings. Anyone interested will also need to attend a training meeting on Monday May 14. Both the training and actual planting will start at 5:00 PM at the east end of Brighton Beach in far East Duluth. Let me know if this is something you'd like to help with. It would be great if at least a couple Wild Ones folks could go, but choosing between this and the wildflower hike will be hard!

3. On June 2 the City of Duluth, Superior, Hermantown and others will host another "Watershed Festival" located under tents up at the K-Mart parking lot near Miller Mall. Because the company I work for (Barr Engineering) is a sponsor for the festival we got a free booth space that I'd like to use for Wild Ones. IF YOU ARE WILLING TO HELP staff the booth for an hour or more anytime between 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM please let me know. This is a good opportunity to reach a potentially different crowd than we talk to at events like Harvest Festival and Earth Day.

I think that's all for now. I am still working on the calendar and hope to send that out along with a mini-newsletter sometime this month. (Besides - it's too nice out to stay inside anymore!)

Carol

Return to the News from our President Page.