There’s a great opportunity coming up to hear from a real expert on native plant ecology. Doug Tallamy, a leading proponent for native planting in the country, is coming to speak on Thursday, October 24 at 6:30 p.m. for free at MU’s Monsanto auditorium. This is event is brought to us by the Mizzou Botanic Garden as the 2024 Jacquelyn K. Jones Lecture.

Establishing native plantings in or near your community garden is a great way to benefit pollinators and the wider local environment. Doug Tallamy’s Homegrown National Park challenge encourages restoration of 20 million acres of privately owned lands with native plant species to attract co-evolved insect and animal species to mitigate ecosystems loss.

Learn more about the lecture and the Mizzou Botanic Garden on their site. And, if you can’t make the event, the Daniel Boone Regional Library is a great resource for Tallamy’s books.