Our Bedrock
Mission Statement: Gardens and programs that inspire, educate and enrich our lives and our community.
Purpose Statement: To educate and encourage citizens on the importance of developing, restoring, maintaining and conserving wildlife habitat and the native plants that comprise that habitat.
Welcome new members!! We hope to see you at our monthly classes and upcoming events.
And to those who have renewed–thank you so much! Memberships help support our organization and our gardens! Renewal notices (for the most part except for exceptionally large volume months in which case they are emailed) are sent out via USPS during the month in which it is due.
Note: We can now accept memberships and renewals online with this link: Membership/Renewals.
However, to help us cover our processing costs for the convenience of using online payments, it is necessary to include those costs in our online membership fees. Amounts remain the same as before for checks/cash.
Separate donations can also be transacted online!
July Class
Saturday July 20th at 10:00am ~ entitled Northwest Backyard Nesting Birds ~ conducted by Brandon Burger, Backyard Bird Shop Vancouver (www.backyardbirdshop.com).
Brandon (one of our most popular speakers) is back with a brand new presentation. If you’ve had feathered friends use your yard as their birthing grounds , this is your chance to learn about several species in regards to when, where, and how they build their nests, as well as incubation times, fledging, parent participation and other nesting related activities.
June Class–Recap
Our June class entitled “Soils are the Secret” which was conducted by Krista Lawrence, Landscape Designer, Garden Coach and owner of Petros Design (www.petrosdesign.com) emphasized the complexity of what happens below the surface. Much is being learned about the complexity and the intertwining of underground systems.
Saturday Morning Work Parties
Get your hands dirty and volunteer at the gardens! Our Saturday morning work parties (SMWP) are well underway and will last through October. Each Saturday morning (from 9:00am to noon) volunteers are guided by one of our garden coordinators to work on needed tasks/projects in the various gardens. Non-Saturday dates and other opportunities may also be available at times. We have a sign-up system using SignUpGenius. Additional sign up dates will be routinely added. To sign up to work on listed days, here is the link: SignUpGenius
Art in the Garden
Our big event, the 12th anniversary of Art in the Garden will be Sunday July 14th from 10am – 4pm. It’s a fun day of art, music, spinning demonstrations and a raffle containing wares from some of the artists–in the beautiful setting of the gardens and surrounds. We have returning artists and many first timers. Musically, we’ll start out with the (NS member) Lorna Baxter Trio featuring vocalist Lorna Baxter (Lorna B Sings for more information), guitarist Bret Malmquist, & bassist Joey Aloia at 10:00am. We’ll continue, once again (it has become a tradition) with the much enjoyed, The Traveling Day Society (native-led drummers) in the afternoon. The Clark County Composters will be in their Demonstration area to the west of the gardens to answer your recycling and composting questions.
Let’s hope for good weather!! Hope to see many of you there!!
Garden Tidings……
If you’ve been to the gardens recently you may have noticed that our Mason Bee tubes are no longer in their protective “cages”. It’s time to bring in your tubes and blocks (see article in the Reading section of the attached News Nuggets). Our Mason Bee herders have reported that almost all of the approximately 900 bee tubes that we had out in the gardens contain cocoons. “At 6 to 8 cocoons per tube that will be between 5 to 7 thousand cocoons”. Sounds like we had a great “crop”! All of the tubes are now safely stored in the garage of one of our herders (Brigg Franklin). Note: Look for our class later in the year–we’ll be learning about the bees and cleaning the tubes (you’ll have the opportunity to obtain cocoons for yourself).
LCNN (Lower Columbia Nature Network which connects our community to nature by fostering partnerships in Clark County and southwest Washington) had their June partner meeting at the gardens. Meredith (our president), Mark Watrin and Chelsey Pacanins both of NatureScaping and CASEE Center facilitated a tour around the beautiful grounds of the Wildlife Botanical Gardens and the surrounding CASEE grounds and enjoyed some time for networking and partner updates. We talked about the youth programs, stewardship opportunities and community programming opportunities of both organizations.
In addition to the Wedding and Bridal Shower held at the gardens in early June, later on we hosted an adult Birthday Party (if you look closely at the attached pic you’ll see which milestone b-day was celebrated) and another Bridal Shower. Busy, busy.
Sharing……
Always striving to best share information, our standard flyers in display boxes at the gardens are now on our website. Find them referenced on the following pages:
https://naturescaping.org/the-gardens/
https://naturescaping.org/the-gardens/flying-flowers-garden/
https://naturescaping.org/the-gardens/hummingbird-place/
Booklet
With funding from a Washington Native Plant Society (WNPS) grant and with many volunteer hours from committee members (you know who you are) a longtime dream has been fulfilled.
We have created a free 52-page booklet as an educational tool that includes dozens of high-quality photos, descriptions and other information regarding native plants found at The Wildlife Botanical Gardens and reasons to incorporate them in your landscape. Here is the link to finding it on our website:
https://naturescaping.org/resources/free-booklet/
Recent Comments:
Visits to the gardens continue to increase as reflected by the comments….
From Business Google:
*Sam B–5 star review
*Yura–5 star review & comment: “Beautiful place.”
*Toini–5 star review, pics & comment: “Love this quiet and beautiful place where everything is thoughtfully planned! Flowers are blooming all the time, and you have a chance to enjoy walking among different trees and listen to the birds singing.”
*Jamee–5 star review
Note: See recent photos posted by visitors:
From Comment Cards:
*Debbie: “Beautiful, whimsical setting. Thank you for all your efforts to save and support nature and wildlife.”
*Anonymous (random passerby): “It’s amazing! Thank you for all the beautiful tranquility!” (added smiley face)
Ralf: “Wonderful Place.”
*Allison: “There’s something interesting and inspiring in each garden.”
Nature Related Quote of the Month
Very timely…plenty of sunshine (too much?) coming our way and lots of flowers and some whimsy. See pic (thanks Larry).
From Hans Christian Andersen: “Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower”.
Enjoy!!