April 5th, 2025
Workshop & Plant Sale
8:00 am to 1 pm
Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center
11715 Cragwold Rd, Kirkwood, MO 63122
Schedule:
8:00 am-8:30 Check-in, Plant Sale, & Networking
8:30-8:45 Opening Remarks
8:45-10:00 Keynote: Heather Holm "Predatory Wasps"
10:00-10:45 Break
10:45-11:15 Advocacy: How to Get Native Plants in Your Community
11:15-Noon Erin Goss "Harnessing the Wind: Using Native Plant Reproductive Strategies in Landscape Design"
Noon-1pm Plant Sale while supplies last
Featured Presentations
Keynote Speaker: Heather Holm
Native Predatory Wasps: Their Role as Pollinators and Beneficial Insects
Native bees and predatory wasps share the same lineage and also share many behaviors and habitat requirements. Predatory wasps feed their offspring insects (and spiders) and bees diverged from this carnivorous diet to feed their offspring plant-based food (pollen and nectar). Flower-rich landscapes provide critical habitat for both adult bees and wasps because they each consume flower nectar; in addition, wasps need diverse, flower-rich landscapes to hunt for their prey. Heather will highlight many amazing natural history and biology facts about native wasps illustrating their nesting habitat, prey specificity, and the ecosystems services they provide—pest insect population control and pollination.
Heather Holm is a pollinator conservationist and award-winning author of four books: Pollinators of Native Plants (2014), Bees (2017), Wasps (2021), and Common Native Bees of the Eastern United States (2022). Both Bees and Wasps have won multiple book awards including the American Horticultural Society Book Award (2018 and 2022 respectively). Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native pollinators and native plants, and the natural history and biology of native bees and predatory wasps. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and many local publications. Heather is also an accomplished photographer and her pollinator photos are frequently featured in print and electronic publications.
Native Landscaping Advocacy Discussion
Panelists: TBA
Erin Goss - Shaw Nature Reserve
"Harnessing the Wind: Using Native Plant Reproductive Strategies in Landscape Design"
Plants distribute their seed in varying ways and this talk will focus on identifying techniques for using seed dispersal mechanisms to manage plant diversity and populations. We'll discuss how plants reproduce and how you can reproduce them, too - in situ!
