2023 Gold Team Award

Congratulations Delores!

Lunch Bunch

Our chapter values all of it’s 30 plus members and works hard to create membership activities that our diverse age group of 18 to don’t ask and many different work schedules can participate in. One way we reach a group that was overlooked in the past is our Lunch Bunch Membership events. These lunches are held once a month on a Wednesday. Members take turns choosing different local restaurants to try. Depending on the month we can have anywhere from four to twelve members attend our lunches. Delores along with help from other Lunch Bunch participants manage organizing the date, time, location, and reservations. This is a great way for members who do not typically enjoy our happy hour socials to get together and connect. The best lunches are when someone gets a day off work or takes a long lunch to join in the fun. A few of the many places we have visited include Cajun Kitchen, Good Day Café, The Birdhouse, and Nong's Thai Cuisine.  

 

Welcome our 2023/24 NHWT Board

Great things are happening with New Hope WT. 

Come visit us on May 22nd at 6:30 pm for the first meeting of the new year. 

2022/23 New Hope WT Year End Banquet

Thank you to Mary and your outstanding team for a wonderful year of service, growth, and fellowship.

Native Plants

By Rachel Braaten

It’s spring! … Wait, it’s still winter. … Now it’s spring again! … Hold on, it snowed again. Okay, now it’s spring. See?! It’s raining! …Oh, it snowed overnight. Eventually, we’re all going to be getting out into our yards and making decisions about what to focus on this year. Pulling weeds, simple maintenance (which is itself a big job), cleaning out gutters, cutting tree branches, and plantings. This article will be about the plantings we choose.

Let’s first talk about the elephant in the room, so we get that out of the way. Most of the plants we find in local garden stores did not evolve here in Minnesota. They are transplants from other continents. Many of them have pretty flowers or interesting leaves. If you have a favorite, or a bunch of favorites of these, far be it from me to tell you to not plant them. What I do want you to be aware of is that most of these plants help our local ecosystem about as much as having a statue. If you enjoy decorating your yard with statues, I wouldn’t complain then, either.

What I would instead like to do is encourage some exploration into the plants that have evolved here. Here in Minnesota, we have some threatened and endangered insects (insects eat plants, for the most part), such as butterflies, and moths. These insects can only eat plants that have evolved here. Also, most bird species are declining in population numbers. AND, what do you think birds eat? Yes, they do often eat seeds and nectar, and robins do eat worms, but the majority of bird diets consist of insects. Our war on insects over the past few generations has really made it hard on birds. So…

What to plant, then!? Let me introduce you to a new term: keystone species. Certain plants actually do more good than others, even if you’re planting natives. Here in Minnesota, we border the Great Plains and the Eastern Temperate Forests, which means we have a great opportunity for diversity. Instead of listing keystone species for you, I will provide links to the National Wildlife Federation’s keystone species list for these two ecoregions.

For the Eastern Temperate Forest keystone species list: https://www.nwf.org/-/media/Documents/PDFs/Garden-for-Wildlife/Keystone-Plants/NWF-GFW-keystoneplant-list-ecoregion-8-eastern-temperate-forests.ashx?la=en&hash=1E180E2E5F2B06EB9ADF28882353B3BC7B3B247D

For the Great Plains keystone species list: https://www.nwf.org/-/media/Documents/PDFs/Garden-for-Wildlife/Keystone-Plants/NWF-GFW-keystone-plant-list-ecoregion-9-great-plains.ashx?la=en&hash=D93EC537B17AF4BEA41B4CC0149413C15A46CC29

AND instead of providing you with a long list of nurseries or native landscaping companies, conveniently, MNDNR has already compiled this list for us, so here’s that link: https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/assistance/backyard/gardens/native_plant/suppliers_central.pdf

Happy planting!!!

P.S. If you’re wanting to get geeky and learn more about endangered or threatened species in Minnesota, here’s a link to that list: https://files.dnr.stat e.mn.us/natural_resources/ets/endlist.pdf 

Woodland Restoration Volunteer Opportunities - open to the public

Help protect our local habitat. Volunteers always welcome. The Woodland Restoration Project meets Thursdays, May through July, at 6:30 p.m., at the Hagemeister Pond Natural Area.

The project group spreads seeds; plants bulbs, seedlings and trees; and removes invasive species like buckthorn and garlic mustard, between the gazebo and pond.

Sonnesyn Elementary Fair

By Rita Johnson

We have been asked to help Sonnesyn with the games at their event. The date is Friday, June 2, 5:00-7:30pm. The shifts are 50 minutes long, so we can sign up for 1-3 shifts on a game or switch off. It was always such a great feeling to see the looks on the children's faces when they were playing the games. That is the thing I miss the most, now that we don't do Duk Duk Daze.

Another positive note, we would only be helping to run the 10 games, like we did for Duk Duk Daze, we don't set up or tear down.

Sonnesyn is located on 34th and Boone and the event will be outside, if weather permits or inside if bad weather.

Their sign-up genius link is below. If any chapter members sign up to help, they will also let us set up a membership table at the event. So, if you sign up to help, please let me know so that I can arrange for the membership table to be set up. https://m.signupgenius.com/#!/showSignUp/8050d4cadad2ea2f94-2023