Wisconsin Garden Expo Recap

We spent most our Saturday at the Wisconsin Garden Expo where we met with some friends, spoke with some vendors, and attended a few seminars. I wanted to take a few minutes to highlight some of what we saw.

We started the expo in the main hall looking at the various vendor booths. We noticed that it seemed to be more crowded than last year, to the point of being somewhat claustrophobic. We also had this experience in some of the seminars. While it's good that attendance was high, the folks planning the expo may want to address the overcrowding. We had pretty good conversations with the folks from the Bluebird Restoration Asso. of Wisconsin, Wild Ones, and Midwest Decorative Stone & Landscape Supply. I also took a gander at the new Fiskar's StaySharp mower; it looks really cool!

We took in a few seminars as well. I was most impressed with Samantha Peckham of Olbrich Gardens who spoke on The Good, The Bad, and The Hungry. Her presentation grouped wildlife into two categories: the ones we want to have in our lawns or gardens, and the ones we don't. Her "Good" category consisted of three subgroups: "Parasites & Pathogens, Predators, and Pollinators." While parasites may not sound like a good thing, she specifically addressed Milky Spore and Bt used to control insect populations. Some of her garden good guys included: Parasitic Wasps, Dragonflies and Damselflies, Lady Bugs, Swallows, Robins, Amphibians, Bees, and Butterflies. She also included some more controversial animals like Coyotes and Foxes because they help reduce rodent and lagomorph populations. Her list of "not so good guys" was more contentious, and I've no intention of adding Chipmunks, Squirrels, and Red Winged Blackbirds to a list of backyard bad guys (while I don't like them at my feeders all of the time, I rather enjoy them in the yard). However she also spoke about Yellow Jackets, Gypsy Moths, Tent Worms, Japanese Beetles, and Emerald Ash Borers which can certainly be problematic in a lawn or garden. It is however worth noting, that Ms. Peckham suggested that it would be okay to disturb a Red Winged Blackbird nest and remove it as they can be very territorial; this is however unlawful as these birds are protected by the North American Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

We also enjoyed a presentation about water features which was presented by Shane Wagner of the Bruce Company He presented a lot of interesting information about three types of water features: Bubbling Urns, Pondless Waterfalls, and Ponds. He gave excellent details about how much each of these projects would cost and how to do it yourself. After his presentation we were convinced that we no longer want a pond.

Liza Lightfoot of Avant Gardening spoke about natural stone in landscaping. While she seemed to really know her stuff, there was a malfunction with the PowerPoint and the presentation ended 15 minutes early.

Birdscaping in the Midwest was presented by Mariette Nowak, formerly of the Wehr Nature Center. Her presentation validated much of what we've tried to do in the yard so far, and we were excited when plants such as viburnums, chokeberries, dogwoods, and serviceberries all got a shout out, as we have planted shrubs of these types. The most interesting part of her presentation were the graphs that demonstrated how increasing your yard's native plant density will also increase your overall bird abundance as well as the variety of species that spend time in your yard. When living in suburban Milwaukee on a small lot, she had counted close to 90 different species in her yard. She also plugged Doug Tallamy's Bringing Nature Home, which was awesome! Her presentation was generally good and had a lot of information, but it was too long for the allotted time so the end was rushed.

Generally the expo was fun, and we came away with some good ideas about how best to go about this year's landscaping. It's too bad that we'll need to wait another couple of months before we can really do anything.