Meeting Notes: February 17th @ 10:30AM
Community Check-ins
- @syd is excited about Game Night at Johns Total Entertainment Tonight (4-7PM)
- @briana_dokken is excited to learn context about Resilient Lawns efforts
- @cberthiaume has thoughts! Don’t worry they will share the thoughts in the meeting!
- Crystal shared a cool book, “Nature’s Best Hope”
- @mgm is thinking about butterflies & monarchs, she shared this article: Why there may be much fewer monarch butterfly sightings in the US this summer - ABC News
- @Nic_McPhee is thinking about big projects at work & school (good luck Nic!)
Syd shared some context and history of the Resilient Lawns Work
New Conversation:
- Cameron was thinking with Griffin about applying to the Lawns to Legumes program to establish an example plot.
- Instead of creating an example plot, can we collect examples that already exist in our community? Could we create a “Resilient Lawns Walking Tour” of Morris.
- Sharing the Lawns to Legumes application is an immediate work we can do: https://bwsr.state.mn.us/l2l
One Pager:
- Why would you want to have a Resilient Lawn?
- wildlife, pollinators
- reducing needs for chemicals (runoff, water quality)
- lower maintenance
- Where can I see examples?
- Walking Tour of Resilient Lawns in Morris
- Walking Tour of Rain Gardens in Morris
- Public Rain Garden - Highland Drive (who put it there, how do they maintain it?)
- Behind the Mall native plantings
- UMN Morris Prairie Plantings
- How to get started
- Lawns to Legumes
- SWCD Rain Gardens
- Morning Sky Greenery
- Cater to the wide array of folks - not just the ones who do the most lawn changes
- If you want the lawn you have, how can you take care of it more resiliently
- How can we frame resilient lawns in a way that does not make big ag think we are upset with them?
- “we want pollinators because we are an agricultural area, have resilient lawns to help support farmers”
- Nic & Sue could apply to Lawns to Leguemes as an example lawn
- WCMNCN friends help plant it
- Good visual & story
- “Community barn raising, but for lawns. :-)” Nic
How can we continue this conversation once we create the one pager?
- Park Board
- Put up signs in yard
- Normalizing the behavior
- Reach out to folks with these types of lawns (we <3 your lawn list)
- Master Gardeners - garden tour
- Pomme De Terre Garden Club
- Vicky Dosdall
- Sue Granger
- Seed collection events, USFWS events
- Bee house making
Next Steps:
- One Pager (syd)
- Resilient Lawn/Rain Gardens Map
- Everyone adds two or three neighbors to the Local Resilient Lawn List
- Expanding Conversation
To Do:
- Cameron
- Talk to Sue about the Mall
- Talk to Public Works about Highland Drive
- Syd
- Draft up one pager
- Create a list: Sally Finzel can give us names
- Garden Club reach out and ask if they have a meeting with no agenda that we could crash and chat about lawn stuff