Cassandra Toews

As many of you know, a group of Jackson County Master Gardeners has designed and planted a Native Plant Demonstration Garden on the Britt Music & Arts Festival grounds. It is located surrounding the ticket office – look for the signage.

Not everyone is familiar with the value of native plants to our ecosystems and wildlife populations. It is our hope that by offering this example, with explanatory signage, it will encourage others to include native plantings in their home gardens. Doug Tallamy’s latest book, Nature’s Best Hope, is all about taking environmental action into our own hands and creating ‘conservation corridors’ within our own yards – rather than waiting for government policy to catch up.

Now that we have planted this garden, we will need volunteers to help maintain it and keep it looking good as it takes shape. The Britt gardeners have set up a watering system but every few months, or seasonally, it will need to be weeded and have fallen debris cleared. All volunteers will need to sign up as a Britt volunteer for liability requirements – and to specifically identify “native plant garden” as your focus. See https://brittsociety.org/#Signup to sign up.

I hope you’ll find this project as important as I do and will join me in an occasional work group at the Britt. Please contact me, Cassandra Toews, via email at cstoews@gmail.com if you’re interested.

Tallamy, Douglas W., Nature’s Best Hope. Timber Press, 2019.