Chapters in Minnesota

What IS winter sowing? It's an easy way to safely sow your native seeds in their own private greenhouse until you're ready to move them into their forever home!

Join us Saturday, March 7th at 9am - 12pm at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 4310 County Road 137, St Cloud.

-First will be coffee and homemade treats from the BLC quilting ladies. 
-Next, our very own Brian Johnson, President of Wild Ones Native St. Cloud, will present a talk on the Importance of Native Plants and Pollinators. 
-Then we will plant native wildflowers, which will be transplanted next fall into the BLC renovated prairie. If you want to take home some winter sowing, please bring in your own seeds. 
-Finally, pizza for all!

    Dustin is the owner of the native plant nursery Blazing Star Gardens, and is well known for producing and landscaping with native plants.   In addition to growing and marketing beautiful native plants, he is a professional landscaper and garden designer who understands many people want beautiful, high-quality gardens with native plants.  His mission for Blazing Star Gardens is to create wildflower gardens that support wildlife and bring native plants back to the cities and back to the people.   

Dustin will help folks figure out how to reduce their lawns and bring their yards to life with native plant landscapes designed to enhance the beauty and vitality of their properties.             

Visualizing the Native Garden: 

A Practical Design Tool for Planning Gardens

Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Social 6:30 pm | Program 7:00 pm

Richfield Community Center | 7000 Nicollet Ave 

Presenter | Dustin Demmer

Many native gardeners have extensive plant lists—but translating those lists into cohesive garden designs is another challenge. This presentation introduces a unique, illustration-based native plant design tool that offers a fresh, hands-on approach to garden planning. Unlike traditional paper or digital layouts, this novel visual system allows gardeners to visually test layouts, experiment with layering, and evaluate bloom progression in a more intuitive way. After introducing this intuitive design process, we will go through a design scenario for a small, city garden with plenty of flowers and short grasses in the increasingly popular mixed style of gardening. 

Dustin Demmer founded the native plant nursery Blazing Star Gardens 13 years ago with a mission to bring native plants back into our communities. By promoting practical, low-maintenance strategies, he works to make native gardening accessible to beginners and experts alike. He is especially known for his use of short sedges and grasses as the structural backbone of a garden—so much so that one customer once remarked their design had “too many grasses,” even though Dustin had already reduced them by half of what he typically recommends.

6:30 pm meet/greet, 7 pm chapter program

Tired of battling invasive plants on your own? Learn how to use aggressive native plants to outcompete invasives and restore ecosystems. This program will cover questions like seed vs. plugs, when to plant, and what to expect when using aggressive plant species as competition. Invasive buckthorn, honeysuckle, and tansy will be the focus, but these techniques can be adapted for competing with other invasive species too.

Nick Levine is the owner of Nick's Natives LLC, an ecological landscaping company specializing in native plant and permaculture gardens. Previously, he has worked on large ecosystem restoration projects with Friends of the Mississippi River and Northern Ecological Services. He is an active advocate for conservation and volunteers on the Minnesota DNR's Natural Heritage Advisory Committee (NHAC). Nick is also a Master Gardener and Master Naturalist who spends his free time slaying buckthorn and sowing native seeds. He lives in Duluth with his husband and their three pets.
 

In-person and Zoom. The link will be on the Wild Ones Prairie Edge website closer to the event at www.wildonesprairieedge.org/meetings.html

Wildflowers color our lives. Stan will present the fascinating world of wildflowers in a fun and engaging way that only Stan can deliver. Learn why we have wildflowers and what they do.

Stan will sell and sign books at 6:45pm, and welcomes you to bring books you already own for signing.

Visit Stan's website Nature Smart naturesmart.com to find tours, blogs, wildlife images, and more. Stan is a well-known columnist and radio personality whose syndicated column appears in over 20 newspapers; his wildlife programs are broadcast on a number of Midwest radio stations. Stan has authored more than 200 field guides, nature appreciation books and wildlife audio CDs for nearly every state in the nation, presenting many species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, trees, wildflowers and cacti.