8th Street Pocket Park

The 8th Street Pocket Park is a small neighborhood park that uses native plants and landscaping to provide education and outreach to neighbors and students that my wife and I have been working on for the last couple of years. Because of its small size and out of the way location, this little piece of ground was neglected, growing only knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) and dog waste (no Latin binomial necessary). Located between an irrigation ditch and the intersection of 8th and Grant streets, the entire "park" was located in the city's right of way. A few neighbors saw an opportunity to work together and develop a wildflower garden, providing beauty and benefits to the nearby school and surrounding neighborhood.

Our goal was to build and maintain this pocket park as a little piece of wild Montana on the corner of 8th and Grant, by using plants native to the Missoula valley and to provide education & outreach to neighbors and students and a little wildlife habitat in our neighborhood. Our hope was that this park will be enjoyed by passersby, and provide a chance to stop and learn about native plants, and wildlife. To that end we developed and installed interpretive signs (see below), paths to interact and view the landscaping and installed benches to help turn this once weed patch into a destination.

In 2008, we completed the south portion (pictured in this post)of the pocket park (with significant help from a $2,000ish neighborhood grant) and we obtained a grant to complete the park this year by expanding the project by landscaping the east portion of the park. We also hope to continue the strong partnerships and neighborhood cooperation that made the first phase so successful.

The aspect of this project I was most concerned about was that as a public park, I wanted the plants to thrive, for weeding to be minimal, and for it to be a good example of native plant landscaping. My hope was that this would give people ideas for this type of landscaping in their own yards, so as a demonstration garden, this needed to look good. To that end, site preparation was essential, and we spent a lot of time on this.

The first step involved getting rid of noxious weeds through hand-pulling and herbicide treatments. The next step involved using a sod cutter to remove the "grass" (read: dog poop, quack grass, lawn, and dandelions). We installed lawn edging around the perimeter (see photo below), then removed all the sod, waited a few weeks, dug out or pulled everything that germinated, repeated this step again, brought in screened top soil, and compost mix to form hills, planted the area and covered it all with 6" of shredded cedar bark mulch.

From the time it was planted until the end of the growing season, we watered the little park every other day heavily. Since October 2008, we have not irrigated it, and have had only one weeding night. The plants have thrived and I think this has been a great public garden example.

Below part of the park is shown, August 2008, after the area was planted.
Below is a picture of the same area in August 2009, after just one year of growth.

Below is just one of several interpretive signs...Again, the same location one year later.This is one of the only "before" pictures we have. Again, you can never take too many pictures before you begin a project- I never take enough (see my lament here). Below, volunteers are installing lawn edging and laying out the split rail cedar fence, in spring 2008. This picture was taken after we removed noxious weeds, so it actually looks like a lawn here- seeing the area as a lawn, in itself, was a lot of work and represented a lot of progress.This picture is taken roughly the same location in early spring 2009, and if you look closely you can see a black-capped chickadee on the nest box. This spring a pair excavated this box and raised a clutch- success!Below is roughly the same location in August 2009- plants thrived, despite no irrigation in 2009.
Since education and outreach were our primary goals of this project, we installed several interpretive signs in this little park. These signs provide information about the history of the park, the partnerships, as well as natural history of the area and specifically about native plants and wildlife found in the park. Below are examples of two of the six interpretive signs.
Also pictured above is a National Wildlife Federation wildlife habitat sign. This park is certified as Backyard Wildlife Habitat because it incorporates the following elements: food, water, cover, places to raise young, sustainable gardening practices, native plants.

Our neighborhood is deficient in parks and open spaces. Landscaping this site transformed existing public space from an unusable state into an attractive pocket park. While the final product of this effort meets a community need (more park space), the process of creating the native plant landscape also meets community needs.

My wife has been working with the local elementary school through the Flagship Program, an after school program for neighborhood children, and has lead field trips for dozens of children to this little garden. She has gone to classrooms to teach kids about native plants, has had them grow plants that we later transplanted to the park, and has had children help pant and weed this park for the last couple of years .

This project was also shared goal of the Montana Native Plant Society and the University of Montana's natural areas integrated plant management program (my wife's program) to provide education and outreach about native plants and their conservation. Despite the small size of this park, it has addressed multiple community needs, and it is a long way from its former state of knapweed, dog waste, and neglect.

Native Plant and Widlife Gardening Opportunity!

Join us Sunday night at 7pm, at the 8th Street Pocket Park Native Plant Garden (at the corner of 8th and Grant) for an hour of light weeding and garden clean-up.  This is a great opportunity to learn to identify native plants, learn gardening techniques and see some easy to grow beautiful native plants in action. 

Ranger Orientation
Since the planned events don't work with everyone's schedules, several neighbors have requested to do an "independent study" that is, to be assigned tasks that they can work on outside of scheduled clean-ups.  We are really excited about this, and those that have volunteered  we are calling Pocket Park-Rangers! So, if you'd like to be assigned a task, come by for an orientation.  The types of things for the independent studies are dandelion patrol and removal, mowing the horseshoe court, trimming the grasses along the edges of the park and the ditch, trash pick-up, and maybe watering some new transplants. 

Here is a little background on the park:
The 8th Street Pocket Park is a small neighborhood park my wife and I have been volunteering our time and donating plants and materials to for over 5 years including planning, landscaping, grant writing and maintaining the park (click here for more information). This was an unused right of way (owned by the city) that was not being maintained, cared for, and had just turned into a gathering area for trash and noxious weeds. We transformed 1/2 of it n 2008, using drought tolerant native plants, and incorporated many wildlife features.  In 2009 we received a grant for plants, mulch and other landscaping materials and in 2010, we completed the park. Funding for materials for this project has come from the Missoula Office of Neighborhoods, UM Natural Areas, and Montana Native Plant Society. Materials were also donated by Home Resource (like recycled lumber, fencing, lawn edging and more), and plants and bird, bat, bee houses and interpretive signs were donated by Butterfly Properties (that is, my wife and me).

Our neighborhood is deficient in parks and open spaces. Landscaping this site transformed existing public space from an unusable state into an attractive little park. While the final product meets a community need (more park space), the process of creating the native plant landscape also engaged neighbors visitors to the area.

Also, while you are at the park, check out the various houses- bee (below), bat (above) and chickadee nest boxes in the garden. 

You can stay up to date on all the happenings in the little native plant garden by liking it on Facebook.  Also, here is the event page for the clean-up event.

If you come, bring some gloves and weeding tools if you have them.  And don't forget your camera!

8th Street Pocket Park: Phase 2

Phase 2 of the Pocket park is about to begin (a photo of the adjacent Phase 1 is above and click here for more info on the park). We received a neighborhood grant to work on the northeast side of the park, and this week will will start implementing the plan (see below).

Last Friday, the Missoula Parks and Recreation Department approved the landscape plan and plant species for the park. This was really good, in and of itself. In many ways, this pocket park is not a conventional park, and one of the ways is that is it falls entirely in the city right of way. Consequently, there are many regulations for what can be planted on the boulevard and related areas. In essence, this landscaping falls under a sort of street tree ordinance, and our proposed native plants do not occur in the city's preferred species list. However, after some discussion, we were granted approval to continue. It is great that the parks dept. saw the importance of a neighborhood garden and value of native plants.

In the photo below you can see the current condition of the park- not much to see and not much to do there, either (yes, that is the whole thing we will be landscaping, it is pretty small).

Below is the landscape plan for this part of the park. The main element in this next phase is a horseshoe court, as well as native plants. Starting this Wednesday night (7-8 pm) we will be preparing the site. Wednesday nights around 7 pm, will probably be a regular day and time to work on the garden, until hunting season, that is, and I guess until it gets dark. OK, so the dates and time could change, so, contact Marilyn to get on the email notification list.

Roughly here is the schedule: remove sod and weeds, install lawn edging around the perimeter of the park, install a split rail fence around the horseshoe court (and on the east boundary of the park, bring in compost and topsoil, form hills, install plants, and mulch the heck out of it. Finally, I'll add some more interpretive signs and the horse shoe pits.

This should go a lot faster than the first part of this project, so check back to see the progress.

8th Street Pocket Park update and volunteer night

Join us Thursday night (7-8 pm) when we continue to landscape the 8th Street Pocket Park (at the corner of 8th and Grant). Learn about native plants, gardening, wildlife gardening and how to do it! Bring your questions, notebooks and cameras. Tasks for volunteers this week include planting grasses and flowers (in the photo below), screening topsoil, installing lawn edging, and some light weeding.

The 8th Street Pocket Park is a small neighborhood park my wife and I have been volunteering on- planning, landscaping, grant writing and maintaining for the last few years (click here for more information). This was an unused right of way (owned by the city) that was not being maintained, cared for, and had just turned into a gathering area for trash and noxious weeds. We transformed 1/2 of it n 2008, using drought tolerant native plants, and incorporated many wildlife features (see above).

In 2009 we received a grant for plants, mulch and other landscaping materials and last summer we began site preparation of phase 2- the next 1/2 of the park (see above, as the site looked in 2009). Funding for materials for this project has come from the Missoula Office of Neighborhoods, UM Natural Areas, and Montana Native Plant Society. Materials were also donated by Home Resource (like recycled lumber, fencing, lawn edging and more), and plants and bird, bat, bee houses and interpretive signs were donated by Butterfly Properties (that is, my wife and me).

This spring, I installed a fence, horseshoe court, trees, and other wildlife features (see photos below), and last Thursday with help from neighborhood volunteers we planted shrubs, and did some weeding.

Below you can see a standing cottonwood snag (dead tree trunk) I planted and a bat box I made.

We hope to see you there. Wear sturdy shoes, bring gloves (always a nice idea but not mandatory) and your favorite planting tool. We'll have tools too. If you want more information, contact Marilyn at marler@bigsky.net

Spring Clean-up at the Native Plant Garden Pocket Park

Join us Thursday evening April 19 from 6:30-8:00 at the little pocket park my wife and I have been landscaping for the last several years.  Click here to learn more about this project of ours.  We'll be doing some weeding, and general clean-up of old stems and branches.  This is a great opportunity to learn about native plants, and native plant gardening while helping out a little community park.
Also, if you are interested in goings on at the park, "like" our Facebook page!  And, here is the event page for the clean -up night.
If you are interested in coming, bring some gloves and weeding tools if you have them.  I hope to see you there!

Community Native Plant Garden Volunteerism: International Edition

A guest post by David's wife.

We just got home from a week in Glacier & Waterton Lakes National Parks. Together the parks have been designated an International Peace Park because of efforts to manage the landscape cooperatively, and because the shared boundary between the parks (Glacier in Montana, USA, and Waterton Lakes in Alberta, Canada) is the longest stretch of unprotected border between the two nations. It's a nice feeling. The parks are completely breathtaking. We did a lot of hiking, fishing, wildlife viewing, and of course, we volunteered at the native plant garden in the Waterton townsite.

Yes, that's right, there is a beautiful native plant demonstration garden right in downtown Waterton. And because we were on a charmed trip (staying in the Prince of Wales Hotel for a few nights, backpacking back and forth across the Canada-USA border, spotting 11 bears on the trip, seeing not only two white-tailed ptarmigan on the Carthew Ridge, but also TWO pomeranians- Chester and Sadie) it worked out that we were there in time to participate in the weekly volunteer sessions. Can you believe it? I know!

When we found out about the volunteer night at the garden, we were all over it. Volunteer nights in the garden are fairly new (Friday from 3-5 pm), and are led by Parks Canada Interpretive Specialist David Musto. Lois from Lethbridge is a regular volunteer in this and other plant restoration projects in Waterton (both are pictured below). We enjoyed visiting with them, exchanging ideas about community garden projects.

We loved the garden. It surrounds an old cottage-y style government building and has huge swathes of goldenrod (Solidago spp.), fireweed (Epilobium angustifolia), asters (Aster spp.) and blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata). Penstemons (Penstemon confertus, and other P. spp.) and dryas (Dryas octopetala) were in seed.

We spent some time weeding familiar things like black medic and cheatgrass. I was just getting set to go after some quackgrass when it was already time to go.

It's a wonderful project and I hope that people will participate as part of the outstanding interpretative programs offered in the park.  If you are going to Waterton, stop by and check it out! 

And now for the important, local segue...

If you aren't going to be in Waterton, there is a similar awesome volunteer opportunity for you just south of the border here in Missoula.  This Thursday August 18th from 6:30-8:00pm we're having a volunteer night at the 8th Street Native Plant Pocket Park.  Tasks include collecting seeds, pulling some bindweed, and a general cutting back of things (for aesthetics). Here is the link to the Facebook event:

 http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210942235621783

and of course we want you to go to the new Facebook Fan Page for the Pocket Park and "Like" it.

See you there, or right here on the blog. Happy Late Summer and best wishes to our international friends working on urban native plant gardens.  We just found a like minded project in Chile thanks to the wonders of Facebook. We're happy to see people everywhere embracing their native species in urban areas. 

Native bee nesting update

A little while back a wrote how to make a house for solitary nesting bees in 5 minutes (part of my wildlife garden stuff in 5 minute series) and above is a video of the bee house I installed at the Native Plant Garden at 8th and Grant.

So, here is the update after the bee houses have been in place for about two months...

There has been a lot of activity in the last couple of weeks, and not just at my house, but at all the locations where I set them up- at the Native Plant Garden at 8th and Grant (aka the 8th Street Pocket Park) and at Home ReSource. Also the activity seemed to be shared by not just the mason bees (Osmia spp.) but also various leaf cutting bees (Megachile spp.), and even some brood parasites like the cuckoo bee (Coelioxys spp.). The cuckoo bee frequents the nest boxes because they lay their eggs in the nests of the leaf cutting bees. These were the most active bees in our backyard tonight. All are really cool.

Here is a great guide to the common bees of western Montana, with an emphasis on native solitary nesting bees by Jennifer Palladini, and it would be a great compliment to your bee house to keep a copy close by.

By the way, although it is recommended to have them face east, the ones facing south have much more bees in them (I should that this conclusion is based on a small and unequal sample size so, please, view these results with caution).

Although it seemed expected that the native bees would find the boxes in our backyard and at the Native Plant Garden at 8th and Grant, I am most excited they have taken up residence in the nest box in the native plant garden at Hom ReSource. Home ReSource in located in an industrial setting, a place with few native plants, and few gardens. Their presence in this little patch of habitat is especially gratifying.

Though I questioned the efficacy of these boxes for conservation, etc.. in my last post, they are just flat out fun to watch and a great tool for teaching and learning about our native bees. So, by all means build one and install one today. Better yet, make a few and give them as gifts (and include the bee guide).

Nesting, nestling and fledging update

There is a lot going on with nesting birds in our garden. We have northern flickers, black-capped chickadee, and red-breastered nuthatches in various stages of nesting and fledging in nest boxes in our small backyard. Here is a breif run down on the actvity....

Black- capped chickadees

The chickadees should fledge any time now- they are ready to go but have probably been delayed by this rain. By the way, thank goodness for the rain!

If you haven't done so already check out the inside of the nest box with our streaming nest camera. But you'd better hurry because they are about to fledge. Click here to go inside the nest box.

At the beginning of this posts is a short video my wife took of the outside of the box and one of the adults feeding the young. For those that only know the chickadees from the inside of the nest box, this view might be interesting.

One thing I am really excited about is that we will be able to capture the mysterious second clutch this year on camera. every year, the chickadees have a second clutch, even after a typically very fruitful first clutch. The second clutch is usually smaller, and takes less time to fledge. It has aways appeared that the young from the first clutch help in raising (or at least with the feeding), the second clutch. Hopefully, though we'll be able to learn a little more of what is going on. It is not really common that chickadees have two clutches, so I am excited to learn more.

Red-breasted nuthatches

These little fellas have been a bit overlooked this year, I am sad to say. Not that they care, but theirs is the only box in which we did not install a nest cam. As a result, we have been so focused on the chickadees and the flicker business, that these little guys have been almost ignored (not really, but relatively). Anyway, they should be fledging any day now, too, but without all the fanfare. One interesting thing to note with these nuthatches, is that there are nuthatches nesting in the nest box I installed at the 8th Street Pocket Park, which is just a block away. Every so often these two nuthatch factions defend their little territories, which is kind of neat.

Northern flickers

Wow, they have had an eventful spring. Here is a little story of their spring...

• They excavated out nest box
• They also excavated a cavity in a silver maple in front of my neighbors house
• They laid eggs in the cavity in the maple
• European starlings evicted them from their nest
• The starlings are nesting in the tree
• The flickers left the area
• Last weekend the flickers returned to the nest box, and as of yesterday (June 3)have laid at least 2 eggs (in the photo below- kind of poor qualiy but it is a video capture).

I hope they can raise a clutch- it is getting late for them.

Once the chickadees fledge we will switch to the flickercam for nest box viewing. Exciting.

Native Plant Gardening Events June 25 & 26

Next weekend my wife and I are organizing two native plant and wildlife gardening workshops/ events.  The first would help us complete a portion of the landscaping at Home ReSource (my favorite Missoula store), and the second is some maintenance work at the Native Plant Garden at 8th and Grant (pictured above).

My wife and I have a native plant, wildlife, and sustainable garden coaching and consultation business, Butterfly Properties, and each year we select a community project to work on as volunteers.  We enjoy spreading the beauty of native plants throughout town, and promoting an appreciation of Montana's flora.  The Native Plant Garden at 8th and Grant and Home ReSource's landscaping are two of our on-going projects.


We also support non-profits in other ways: offering discounted services to the Green Blocks participants, donating services to charity auctions, even giving actual money when we have it (we are even in the process of devleoping a grant program for community groups and non-profits).


We're planning some work at both these sites next weekend and we hope you will join us for a few hours and learn about landscaping installation, site preparation, design, and of course, weeding.

Saturday June 25, 10 am- 1 pm at Home ReSource, 1515 Wyoming Street We are finishing the Home ReSource project by adding a "landscape pocket" on the Russell Street side. This new bed is an opportunity to learn about site preparation, native plant species, and garden maintenance. We love Home ReSource (their mission, their staff, and all the cool stuff they have for sale), and we have been donating our time and materials to this site since last year. (Here's a blog post from several months ago about spring maintenance in the HR gardens). Topics/ activities: Site preparation (when do you need to add topsoil? Why? Where do you get it? Soil grading (What is it? How?) How to plant plants Mulch (Why? How? Where do you get it?) Tour established native plant landscape at Home ReSource (completed in 2010). Weed identification and removal (minimal) Bring work gloves, sturdy shoes and questions! Sunday June 26, 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm at the Native Plant Garden at 8th and Grant Stop by and check out how beautiful this little park has become, and see what's flowering this week! Help clean up the park and learn about native plants and wildlife gardening. We will be weeding, pruning and maybe even planting a few plants. Bring gloves, and tools for weeding (if you have them). You can learn more about the park here. Maybe we'll throw a few horseshoes in the horseshoe court, if there's time and energy. It's a wonderful community spot and we'd love to show it to you. Sunday June 26th, 6:30 pm- 8 pm. You can view and even RSVP for both of these events on our Facebook site

Spring Cleaning in the Garden

(Special Guest Blog by David's Wife)

Spring is here and what better way to celebrate than by puttering around in the garden? It’s a good time to see actual plant growth (the new leaves are almost here) and do some tidying up. Here’s a recap of our Big Garden Clean Up Putter over at Home ReSource.

Sidebar: you may recall that David and I designed and installed the native plant landscaping at Home ReSource as volunteers. We think the world of HR and want the landscaping to reflect their mission of sustainable living.

Our tasks for the day:

1. Pick up trash that had been hiding under the snow
2. Trim back shrubs for better shaping
3. Use the trimmed branches for creating (or reinforcing) brush piles for wildlife
4. Install birdhouse
5. Repair a bird bath

In the above photo, David installs a bird house above a landscape island in which the trash has been removed, shrubs trimmed, and a brush pile created. It went really well. If you live in Missoula, this is the time to clean up. It was fun seeing the staff at HR and they provided us with some good natured high school kids who were working off a community service requirement. So the whole thing went quickly and easily.

Here’s some more detail.

Step 1: Self explanatory. It’s depressing when the snow comes off to see how much crud was hiding under there for months. But it’s really satisfying to throw it away. Another positive note: David found my Leatherman Mini under some snow. I didn’t even realize I had lost it. Thanks David!

Step 2: David trimmed back unruly branches of Wood’s rose (it just makes them stronger- top photo) and snowberry (just for shaping purposes- bottom photo).

A few wayward branches of chokecherry, shrubby cinquefoil and Ponderosa pines got cut too. I want to stress that this trimming is for aesthetic reasons. Of course, these native plants do just fine out in the world without gardeners showing up to trim them. But when we use native plants in a landscape setting, it is perfectly reasonable to impose a little bit of order on them.

Step 3: The high school kids and I took all the branches and piled them for brush piles. These are nice little refuges for ground feeding birds, insects (like butterfly chrysalises) and who knows what else. There isn’t really any way to mess up a brush pile, but David has directions on his website: http://montanawildlifegardener.blogspot.com/2009/04/build-brush-pile-for-wildlife.html

Here’s one of the new brush piles, near Wyoming Street.

Soon creatures will be piling in there for refuge from all kinds of things (weather, stray cats, hungry birds). You know who loves a good brush pile?

The Mourning Cloak, Montana’s state butterfly. It spends the whole winter as an adult, stashed away in a brush pile somewhere.

Step 4: Install a bird house. If you want birds to nest in your yard this spring, PUT UP YOUR BOXES AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Birds are looking for nest sites now. Read more at

http://montanawildlifegardener.blogspot.com/2009/02/birdhouse-basics.html

Here’s David installing a nest box above the parking lot at Home ReSource today. It’s mounted about 9 feet off the ground and facing east. It could be used by chickadees, nuthatches or wrens.

If you haven’t put up a bird house yet STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING and go over to Home ReSource, because they sell bird houses for native species made entirely out of recycled materials. They even come with sawdust (for stuffing the box, making it nest-y-er for birds) and an instruction sheet.

They have a lot of great garden items over at the Home ReSource ReVamp Store. In addition to bird houses, they have Mason bee houses, a big garden cart, and creative toys for the kids to play with outside (stick horses by Josh Decker).

Step 5: Repair the bird bath. Last summer David installed a bird bath made from a re-purposed light shade, and connected to the drip irrigation system so it was always fresh and full. Unfortunately the glass bath didn't survive the winter, so he made a new one. Also out of glass. We'll see how it goes. Bird baths are one of the best things you can provide for birds, especially in winter.

As you can see from the photos, it was a pretty grey day here in Missoula Montana. But it was fun to get into the garden and work. When you are up close with the plants, you can tell for sure that they are in fact growing.

We plan to have some clean up days at some other public native plant gardens around town, including but not limited to the 8th Street Pocket Park. So keep your eye out for updates, especially over on Facebook. Don't forget to LIKE us!