The cooler months ahead are ideal times to plan for next year's native gardening projects (as well as ones yet this fall!). We have numerous resources and upcoming events to help you, including the virtual Grow Native! Professional Member Conference, open to all and free for current, dues-paying MPF members and 2023 Grow Native! professional members.

We hope you will enjoy our many upcoming events and news below:

–November 8: Grow Native! Professional Member Conference: Virtual Event Registration Closes November 6

–MSECC Charitable Campaign Ends October 31

–October 25: MPF Webinar: Show Me Tarantulas

–November 22: MPF Webinar: Ecology & Management of Missouri's Woodland Communities

–Leave the Leaves for Overwintering Wildlife

–23 Plant Records Added to the Grow Native! Database

–October 27: FINCA Festival at Lincoln University

–November 12: Cuivre River State Park MPF Volunteer Workday

–Thank You! Grow Native! Members and Sponsors for 2024 Renewals

–2023 Marker Match Met

–2024 MPF Prairie Garden Grant Application Period Open

–Prairie Postcard: Rattlesnake Master: Not Just for the Pollinators

Our best to you,

The MPF Team

MSECC Charitable Campaign Ends October 31

The Missouri State Employees Charitable Campaign (MSECC) is an annual unified fundraising effort that provides state employees with the opportunity to make donations to charitable organizations through the convenience of payroll deduction or one-time gifts. The MSECC is organized and administered by the Missouri Office of Administration.

If you are a State of Missouri employee, please consider making an MSECC gift to MPF via payroll deduction or a one-time gift by October 31. MPF's number in the campaign is 8426.

October 25: Missouri Prairie Foundation Webinar: Show Me Tarantulas

Texas brown tarantulas (Aphonopelma hentzi) living in Missouri are some of the most northerly tarantulas in the United States. They survive because glade habitats provide them with just the right mixture of warmth, humidity, burrowing opportunities, and prey. Essentially, glades provide tarantulas with desert-like conditions at more northerly latitudes in the Midwest. Over time, Missouri glades have been fragmented, and a history of wildfire suppression has permitted encroachment of woody shrubs.

Join Becky Hansis-O'Neill, a PhD student in the biology department at University of Missouri - St. Louis, on Wednesday, October 25 at 5:00 p.m. to learn more about the natural history of A. hentzi in central Missouri and current research efforts. Please note the time for this particular webinar: 5:00 p.m.

This free webinar will include a 40-minute presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session. A link to a recording of the webinar will be emailed to registrants. Register here and learn more about Becky's background and work here.

Photo of Aphonopelma hentzi by Becky Hansis-O'Neill

November 22: MPF Webinar: Ecology & Management of Missouri's Woodland Communities

Missouri woodland communities cover one-third of the state (or 15.5 million acres) and their importance in terms of the state's wildlife habitat and water and soil health cannot be understated.

In this presentation, learn about woodland natural communities and their ecological and historical attributes from MDC Natural Community Ecologist Mike Leahy, and learn the nuts and bolts of restoration and management practices that help keep woodland communities healthy and intact from MDC Natural History Biologist Susan Farrington.

Wednesday, November at 22 at 4:00 p.m. The presentation will be 50 minutes and followed by a question-and-answer session. Free. A link to a recording of the webinar will be emailed to registrants. Register here.

For those who are part of the Grow Native! Professional Certification Program (GNPCP), this webinar counts as one CEU. To register for the class, use the registration link above and see details about earning GNPCP CEUs here.



Photo of woodland community by Bruce Schuette

Leave the Leaves for Overwintering Wildlife

Even after native plants go dormant, they continue to provide important habitat through the fall and winter. Fallen leaves in native gardens shelter small animals like salamanders, snails, and moth cocoons. Standing dead stems that are hollow or pithy provide nesting cavities for native bees, and spent vegetation left in place, along with wildflower and grass seed, help protect birds from winter elements and provide food for them, too.

For all of these reasons, we encourage you to "leave the leaves" in native gardens* this fall and winter. Read more about this important practice here.

You can also purchase a Leave the Leaves sign from MPF's Grow Native! program to help your neighbors understand the benefits your garden provides in fall and winter. (Please allow seven days for delivery.) You may wish to consult the Grow Native! Native Landscaping Care Calendar for additional seasonal garden stewardship tips.

View the Grow Native! Soft Landings and Meaningful Design and Stewardship of Native Landscapes webinars to learn more about making your landscape more hospitable for wildlife during and after the growing season. See this Missouri Prairie Journal article for detailed information on creating "soft landings" habitat for wildlife.

Photo of fallen leaves in a native garden bed by Carol Davit

The Grow Native! Native Plant Database is growing! A searchable database of plants native to the lower Midwest, this resource includes species suitable for landscaping as well as for creating wildlife habitat, stabilizing streams, and for other ecological purposes. With the recent incorporation of 23 additional plant records, the database now provides information for 368 species.

New additions include herbaceous perennials such as starry campion and purple-headed Helen's flower, at left, grasses like broomsedge, shrubs like golden currant, and a vine—swamp leather flower.



Use the database's searchable criteria to select plants ideal for your particular landscaping needs. Search on sun exposure, soil moisture, flower color, wildlife/pollinator benefits, deer resistance, and many other filters. The database is freely available online, so be sure to use it to help make your native plant selections for fall planting and beyond. Most plants in the database are available for purchase from Grow Native! professional members who sell plants. 

We are adding additional photos to records as often as possible. If you would like to give MPF/Grow Native! permission to use your photographs of native plants in landscape situations (e.g., in a formal or informal bed, illustrating summer/fall-blooming natives with "spring haircuts," or natives visited by pollinators) to add to database records, please email erika@moprairie.org. (See the photos at the end of the records for American beakgrain grass and aromatic aster, for examples.) You must be the creator of any submitted photographs, and all photographs will be credited to you as the photographer. You will retain the rights to your works while granting MPF/Grow Native! permission to use them.

Photo of purple-headed Helen's flower (Helenium flexuosum) by Mervin Wallace

October 27: FINCA Festival at Lincoln University

In collaboration with MPF’s Grow Native! program, MDC, and the USDA, Dr. Nadia Navarrete-Tindall and the Specialty Crops Program team at Lincoln University in Jefferson City is hosting a FINCA festival Friday, October 27 from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. at the FINCA EcoFarm in Jefferson City.

The day's festivities will include FINCA tours, informational displays, samples of food made with native plants, cooking demonstrations, and children's activities.

Register for this fun-filled event here.

November 12: Cuivre River State Park Volunteer Workday

MPF volunteers can help steward the open woodlands at Cuivre River State Park near Troy, Missouri on Sunday, November 12 from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. Stewardship activities will include creating a fire break for a prescribed burn, clearing brush, and collecting native seed. 



The workday will be held with a minimum of 5 volunteers and a maximum of 20.

To register for the workday, please call 636-303-7418 or send a message to outreach@moprairie.org.

Thank You! New and Renewing Grow Native! Sponsors and Members for 2024

There are more than 170 professional members of the Grow Native! program in 2023, whose annual membership dues help fund our work to promote the use of native plants in landscaping.

We thank all of them, and recognize the additional Grow Native! professional sponsors and members who have renewed for 2024 since October 10: SunRise Gardens, Ozark Soul, DeLong Landscape Architecture, Grass Roots Garden Center and Gifts, Hamilton Native Outpost, Kress Farm and Garden Preserve, Ozark Berry Farm, LLC, Wickman Gardens, Pollinator Patches, Re/Max Boone Realty, Southernwood Gardens, Sierra Club - Piasa Palisades, Soil Service Nursery, Quail Forever / Pheasants Forever, The Nature Conservancy, Dropseed Nursery, Taylor Creek Restoration Nurseries, Kelly D. Norris, LLC, and Paul Kulick Landscape Architecture. Find details about all Grow Native! professional members in the Grow Native! Resource Guide. 

MPF thanks all donors who contributed to MPF's 2023 Marker Match Campaign for Outreach & Education. More than 50 individuals collectively donated more than $25,000, which will be matched 100% by a very generous $25,000 gift from Susan Lordi Marker and Dennis Marker.

We are grateful for all gifts, which have created a special $50,000 prairie outreach and education fund, to help MPF expand its educational offerings, like hands-on prairie stewardship training, online programming, and much more.

Photo of participants of MPF's 2023 prairie and woodland training by Glenn Longworth

Gardening and other conservation groups, parks, schools, and other entities in Missouri and immediately surrounding states are invited to submit proposals to MPF’s Prairie Garden Grants Program.

In 2024, MPF would like to award several grants to help fund the establishment of prairie gardens or plantings. Grants will not exceed $800 each. Those with smaller projects are encouraged to apply as well. Gardens must be available to the public and must incorporate native prairie species. Matching funds are not required, but proposals with secured matching funds may be evaluated higher than others. 

The deadline to submit an application is January 15, 2024, with funding dispersed in February. See more details on the grant, including previous awardees here, and access the application form here.

Photo of fall color of Penstemon digitalis (white beardtongue) at the Longfellow Community Association native plant garden, established with an MPF Prairie Garden Grant in 2020, by Brett Creason

With its yucca-like appearance and curious common name, rattlesnake master (Erynigium yuccifolium) is bound to get the attention of native plant enthusiasts. In a native prairie or prairie planting, this easily identifiable plant gets plenty of pollinator attention, too.

Biologist and Pollinator Conservationist Heather Holm details a host of pollinators that flock to rattlesnake master for nectar, pollen, and shelter for larvae in her book Pollinators of Native Plants. Red-shouldered pine beetles (Stictoleptura candensis), banded long-horn beetles (Typocerus spp.), yellow-faced bees (Hylaeus spp.), and soldier beetles (Chauliognathus spp.) visit the flowers for nectar, and bumble bees (Bombus spp.) also collect pollen from the plant. Additionally, rattlesnake master is the host plant for the stem-borer moth (Papaipema eryngii), whose larvae bore into the plant’s roots, and in 2020 was reviewed—though ultimately declined—for federal listing under the Endangered Species Act. 

Wasps, however, are the primary visitors to the plant, according to Holm. Paper, mason, great golden digger, and carrot wasps are just some of those that seek out the white flowerheads, each containing about 100 individual, white flowers with five petals and green sepals, as a nectar source. In fall and winter, the plants are recognizable by their dark brown seedheads and foliage. Read more here.

Photo of great golden digger wasp feeding on rattlesnake master by Bruce Schuette; photo of the plant in the fall at an MPF prairie by iNaturalist contributor Kathy Bildner; and photo of an ancient rattlesnake master shoe courtesy University of Missouri (click on the link above to read about the rattlesnake master shoe!)