Staff member, Alyssa Radzwion and volunteer, Dawn Sun gathering seed at Charles Ilsley Park in late October.

Standing hip-deep in native grasses and wildflowers is a pretty terrific way to spend a few hours on a cool autumn afternoon.  Every fall our township Natural Areas Stewardship Manager, Dr. Ben VanderWeide, plans a few days for harvesting the seeds of native wildflowers to plant in our parks over the winter and the following spring.

So this October, volunteers gathered, clippers in hand, paper bags at the ready, to chat quietly as we snipped the seed heads from native prairie flowers. Can you see two of our seed-gathering volunteers in this Where’s Waldo-style photo?

Two volunteers gathering native wildflower seed at Charles Ilsley Park.

It always makes me feel like a child again to stand in a field with friends and have native grasses towering over us.  Here’s our township Stewardship Specialist, Alyssa Radzwion, smiling through a scrim of native grass.

Our stewardship specialist, Alyssa, gathering gray-headed coneflower seeds among the native grasses and wildflowers at Charles Ilsley Park.

On the day pictured above, we harvested seeds from Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta), Gray-headed Coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata), Foxglove Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis), and several other native plants.

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Harvesting native seeds is good stewardship. Ben instructs us volunteers to collect an appropriate amount for each species, leaving lots of seeds where they are to feed wildlife and renew our prairies so they look as glorious next spring as they did this year!  The seeds we harvest, along with purchased wildflower seed, can then help restore more of our natural areas to their former glory. All that and peaceful autumn afternoons among wildflowers and kindred spirits. Maybe you’d like to join us next year as we lend nature a helping hand?

Eastern Prairie at Charles Ilsley Park, July 12, 2018.

Gray-headed Coneflowers at Charles Ilsley Park on August 15, 2018