Diario del proyecto MNSEED Native Plant Community Science Project

iNATURALIST WEBINAR AVAILABLE

Are you signed up for the MnSeed Native Plant Community Science Project? Have you started to document your native plantings as observations in iNaturalist? Minnesota State Horticultural Society hosted a great iNaturalist introduction webinar in May. Britt Forsberg, UMN Extension Educator and Master Naturalist shared her best practices to make the most of iNaturalist and this project. If you missed the webinar here is the recording: https://youtu.be/NDlhkPCl6Fc

This hot weather has all of us in accelerated gardening mode, especially plants. You may have noticed that many of your plants are flowering early and ones that have flowered are setting seed very quickly. So now is the time to check those early spring blooming natives for seed heads. Plants like pussy toes , prairie smoke, pasque flower, and wild geranium are all setting seed here in the twin cities region. Many other early flowering native shrubs and trees are setting seed as well. Now it’s time to take your phone or camera out to the garden to document the current plant life stages for your MnSEED project. Here is a link to local pussytoes that has ready had seed harvested: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/80690444

Want to get more practice using iNaturalist with fellow MnSeeders? Join us Tuesday, June 22 at Horton Park 1383 W. Minnehaha Ave St Paul MN 55104 6:00-7:30 pm for a drop in session to tour the arboretum and native gardens in the park and practice your iNaturalist documentation skills. If you’re a resident or garden in the Capitol Region Watershed Service Area and have joined the MnSeed Native Plant Community Science Project on iNaturalist we’ll have a special set of lenses to enhance your photo taking using your smartphone camera. (Supplies are limited)

Stay cool and don’t forget to load your photo observations with as much detail as possible. We’ll see you on Tuesday June 22nd at Horton Park! Don’t forget your camera or phone! Oh and invite your neighbors!

Happy first full day of summer! We are really growing as a community and it's so great to see members logging their observations. Right now there are so many native plants in various life stages. What are you seeing? What is of particular interest to you? Where is your stewarded native planting? We'd like to hear your story! Please use the iNaturalist email function to send your account to any of the admins. And don't forget to join us tomorrow at Horton Park 1383 W. Minnehaha Ave. 55104 for our 1st in person event, the MnSEED Project Summer Meetup to practice our iNaturalist documentation skills in this centrally located urban park with a community stewarded arboretum and native gardens. We'll see you then!

Jeff Parsons MSHS and MnSEED member responded to our request for project member stories. Jeff, one of the MnSEED top documentors, lives in Inver Grove Heights where he has been removing invasive species, recording what native plants were present when he started the project, and adding to his restoration as he goes.

“As I work on the garden, I have been planting native plants- shrubs like Nanny Berry and Dwarf Bush Honeysuckle, grasses like Prairie Dropseed and Little Bluestem, and a variety of wildflowers.”

After watching the webinars available through Minnesota State Horticultural Society and inspired by the design advice of Cheryl Culbreth his goal is to restore this wooded garden with shade loving natives and plants appropriate to one of Minnesota’s most endangered ecosystems, the oak savanna, on his south facing slope.

“My main goal is to provide an ecological benefit through my landscaping, that it may be become habitat for a variety of insects and birds.”

You’ll also see that Jeff has adopted many of the best practices from Britt Forsberg’s iNaturalist Orientation webinar . One of note is the use of an object for size reference. In Jeff’s observations you may find a ruler used.
Jeff joined the MnSEED Native Plant Community Science Project wanting to learn how to collect seeds from the native plants he’s identifying on his farm. Follow him as a MnSEED project and iNaturalist community member as he grows.
To share your own story please message us!
Happy documenting,
MnSEED team