Events

The Morningside Garden tour includes two different styles of native plant gardens.

The Ponders' Prairie Patch is adjacent to the beautiful S. Ravine Park, and features purple coneflower, butterfly weed, little bluestem, black-eyed susans, and many more native plants. The garden is ever-evolving by human design and wildlife meddling.  🙂

Located at 3301 Walden Ave, Sioux City.

Tom & Cheri Stewart have created an ever-expanding, backyard native garden paradise that's both beautiful and ecologically significant.  In 2022, the Stewart's Hilltop Garden was awarded Sioux City's Yard-of-the-Year.   

Located at 2801 S. Cecelia Street, Sioux City.

Come walk the gardens and enjoy the pollinators who are also visiting!  

Then relax on a garden bench while enjoying some refreshments.  

Or shop the native plant sale at the Hilltop Garden and pick up a few natives for your own yard.  Proceeds from the plant sale go towards funding native plant gardens and educational programs in the Siouxland region.

Both garden walks are open yard style.  Stop in to look around, and come and go as you please.

The Loess Hills chapter of Wild Ones is a non-profit organization that promotes planting native landscapes, both small and large, in Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Native plants attract pollinators and other wildlife, enhancing your home and the environment. 

Join Us at Sara's Garden Walk where there is a mix of garden habitats including petite woodlands with Sweet Cicely, Smooth Solomon Seal, Virginia Water Leaf, Snowberry and Ivory Sedge.

There is the shady rain garden with Marsh Marigold, Swamp Rose Mallow , Cardinal Flowers, Sedges and many other moist or shade loving plants.  

In another area there's a small stumpery with a few Ferns that are continuing to expand and behind the stumpery Yellow Jewel Weed grows naturally.     

These 3 gardens are backed by the Perry Creek bank.

In the front yard, are sunny areas with many native plants such as Liatris, Prairie Rose, Michigan Lily, Coneflowers, Coreopsis, Prairie Clover, Wild Indigo and Sedges. On the side of the house there are  more shade-loving plants including Columbine.  

There's also a non-native herb garden and small vegetable garden.    

This is a Free Event, Open to the Public.  

The Garden Walk is Open Yard style.   Come take a look around, come and go as you please.

The Metzger native gardens were started in Spring of 2020 by Danielle & James and are ever expanding with each passing year. Each garden has a name and was designed by Danielle using plants mostly from Loess Hills Wild Ones native plant sales.

Most of the rock borders for the gardens were transported from Danielle’s father’s farm located in Buena Vista County. Danielle has a love for grasses and sedges.  Her favorite wildflowers are the different species of Purple Coneflower (Echinacea) and Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa). Her love of the Monarch Butterfly is what sparked and ignited her joy of native gardening.

The garden tour is free, open to the public, and open yard style. Come and go as you please.  Refreshments and restrooms will be available.

The Loess Hills chapter of Wild Ones is a non-profit organization that promotes planting native landscapes, both small and large, in Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Native plants attract native pollinators and other wildlife, enhancing your home and the environment. 

Come join us at the Sioux City Railroad Museum and the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center Garden Walks on Saturday, August 23rd from 9am - 12pm.

The Sioux City Railroad Museum Garden Walk is from 9am - 11am and is located at 3400 Sioux River Rd, Sioux City, IA, 51109.

LaVone and Dotty welcome you to the native plantings at the Sioux City Railroad Museum!  We are in our 5th year, so we still have some sleeping, creeping & leaping going on!  

This 31-acre site was previously an industrial area of the Milwaukee Road "Shops" where steam and later diesel engines, and train cars were maintained and repaired from 1920-1965.

The Siouxland Historical Railroad Association attained the site in 1995 (which had been a junkyard for 15-20 years) and began the long process of restoring historic buildings and developing educational displays. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places, earning the honor in 2016.

Our seven gardens are named for buildings on site such as Engineer's Tool Shed or Car Shops Garden, or a feature of significance such as the Wig Wag Garden or the Grand Scale Train Platform.  They each contain a large variety of native plants for partial shade, shade, partial sun, full sun.

La Vone & Dotty, who designed and installed the gardens, will be available to answer your questions.

Afterwards, check out the native Pollinator Gardens at the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center from 10:00 am to Noon, located at Sioux River Road, Sioux City, IA 51109.

New native plants were added in 2021 with the help of Loess Hills Wild Ones (LHWO) and Sioux City Garden Club grants and many volunteers. It has been exciting to see the transformation of our three-tiered gardens over the past few years. The nature center and LHWO volunteers assisted with the planning, planting and maintenance of our garden beds. We’ll share the design plan and information about the native plants that grow and flourish here.

Come see our informational table setup at the Akron Farmer's Market on Wednesday, September 3rd from 5pm to 7pm in the Akron City Park.   

Other organizations such as: Loess Hills Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy's Broken Kettle Grasslands, Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center, Adam's Homestead Nature Center, and Prairie Woods Nature Center will also have informational tables setup.

Members Only Plant Sale Preview Event.  Members get reduced pricing and first choice of plants today only. 

If you're not a member, but want to join us, click the “Join” button on our homepage: 

https://loesshills.wildones.org

Fall Grant Awards will be announced at 5:30 p.m.

Proceeds from the sale are used for numerous native plant gardens and projects in the region, including individual and community grants to assist with native plantings.

Tour the beautiful Hilltop Gardens and shop for native wildflowers and grasses at the Fall Public Native Plant Sale.

Proceeds from the sale are used for numerous native plant gardens and projects in the region, including individual and community grants to assist with native plantings.

Discover how ecological landscaping with native plants can make your landscape more resilient and help address the climate crisis. This webinar will highlight practical, evidence-based approaches to designing and maintaining landscapes that build resilience to climate change and support native biodiversity. Join Wild Ones for a free webinar, “EcoBeneficial Landscape Strategies for the Climate Crisis,” featuring environmental horticulturalist and ecological landscape designer Kim Eierman.

Details coming soon! 

Details coming soon!