Friends of the Wild Flower Garden
Garden update
The MPRB is considering allocating funding to complete improvements to the Garden, including new equipment storage space, an all gender family accessible bathroom, and working space for the staff. Please support the Garden by signing up to receive updates about the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Operations and Visitor Comfort Improvements project! www.minneapolisparks.org/eloise-butler-improvements
The Friends are encouraging everyone to take a survey to let the MPRB know what you would like to see as a part of the project! Go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EloiseButler
Newsletter/Friends News
Current Issue of The Fringed Gentian™
Spring 2019
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Newsletter archive - all back issues.
The next issue will be published in Summer 2019.
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Garden Plant of the Week
Selected from the many species in, or historical to, the Garden.
Butterfly Milkweed
Asclepias tuberosa L.
Click link on name for information and photos of this plant.
The Four Silphiums
Details and photos of the four tall yellow composits in the Upland Garden. Article.
A Seasonal Poem
Love you not, then, to list and hear
The crackling of the gorse-flowers near,
Pouring an orange-scented tide
Of fragrance o’er the desert wide?
To hear the buzzard’s whimpering shrill,
Hovering above you high and still?
The twittering of the bird that dwells
Among the heath’s delicious bells?
While round your bed, o’er fern and blade,
Insects in green and gold arrayed,
The sun’s gay tribes have lightly strayed;
And sweeter sound their humming wings
Than the proud minstrel’s echoing strings.
Taken from A Summer Noon by
William Howitt, 1792–1879
Reflections
“I think of all the familiar wildflowers of America, from Queen Anne’s Lace to mullein that have crossed the Atlantic from Britain. Since it was mainly emigrants from western Europe that, bringing seed with them, developed North American agriculture, it is natural that a wide variety of weeds should have come with them. The total is more than 1000 species. In one list of weeds common in the state of New York, published in 1953, more than 40 percent were common also in England. An account of the important weeds on farms in Canada, issued by the Department of Agriculture, showed that more than 60 percent were introduced from Europe.”
Edwin Way Teale, 1970, from Springtime in Britain.
Garden theme items for sale
Downloadable PDF format books.
1907-1933. Companion book to The Wild Gardener
Martha Crone and the Wild Flower Garden
1933-1958. Companion book to the Crone History
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