Wildflower Walk planned today at university agriculture garden

Woodland wildflowers on gentle slopes are blooming, ready for the Spring Wildflower Walk at 4 p.m. today at the Charles Nemanick Alternative Agriculture Garden on Southeast Missouri State University’s campus.

The walk will start at the butterfly/pollinator garden, which is shaped like a giant butterfly, with wings on either side of a central walkway.

This garden is planted with native flowers and plants for larval support, said Sven Svenson, associate professor in Southeast’s department of agriculture and director of Nemanick Garden, “except the henbit. That’s a weed.”

Svenson said the native flowers for nectar are not quite as important as larval-support plants to attract and support native butterflies.

The woodland garden surrounds a gravel trail, rated as moderate exertion. A storm-drain swale was built approximately 40 to 50 years ago, Svenson said, and on its banks is the woodland garden, the gravel trail skimming its rim.

“We’re finding native plants as we remove invasive species,” Svenson said, explaining the woodland garden is being reclaimed slowly after decades of neglect.

Svenson’s aim is to cultivate as many native Missouri plants as possible in the garden.

“It’s a mixture of land reclamation and horticulture,” Svenson said. “We don’t just identify the plants. We’re trying to redesign what nature used to have, to recreate it without forcing it.”

Where trees fall, they lay, Svenson said.

“Dead trees provide habitat for native bees,” he said, as well as bats and owls. “We leave leaves as ground culture as well,” he said, as leaf cover helps ground-nesting bees such as bigger bumblebees.

“We’re doing a lot of soil conditioning,” Svenson said, including adding compost and removing plants such as Japanese honeysuckle and poison ivy.

“Once those are out of the way, spring wildflowers can reclaim the space,” Svenson said.

The areas close to the trail have been cleared of poison ivy, Svenson said, but as this is a woodland area, some poison ivy is inevitable.

“And it’s native to Missouri,” he said.

The first focus with the woodland area, Svenson said, is to determine whether the plants are native to Cape Girardeau County.

“Then we ask, well, is it native to Missouri? Or the Crowley’s Ridge region?” he said.

Diversity is important in areas such as these, Svenson said, because a monoculture, or area with very few types of plants, doesn’t do much to support a variety of wildlife.

“Not just animals, but insects too,” he said.

“Diversity doesn’t exist on Bermuda grass,” Svenson said.

Right now, several woodland flowers are blooming, Svenson said, indicating purple and white violets, which are each a species native to Missouri and closely resemble invasive English violets, which are less desirable. Purple verbena also is blooming now, as are irises, phlox, wild ginger and others. Mayapples and wild raspberries are greening up, and native ferns are popping up in low-lying areas.

“We’re looking to create a balanced habitat,” Svenson said, because a balanced habitat will stabilize, leading to fewer pest problems, and with a stronger root system in place, native plants are better able to force weeds out.

Svenson said he’s been fortunate finding sources for native plants, partly because retail demand has increased for natives, and partly because he has developed relationships with growers who will use seed he has collected, or will provide plants appropriate to his mission.

For the walk, Svenson recommends dressing comfortably and wearing closed-toe shoes. He said poison ivy is minimized in the woodland area, but some is still present, and the trail is gravel. The walk begins at 4 p.m. at the butterfly garden, near the Charles Hutson Greenhouse at 1039 Bertling St. in Cape Girardeau.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630

Pertinent address:

1039 Bertling St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.