Events

Calling all garden volunteers!  Bring your hand tools, gloves, and drinking water to the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center on Tuesday, August 19th between 8am - 10am to help tidy-up the native pollinator gardens prior to the upcoming Garden Walk.    It's a casual, flexible work environment, so if 8am is too early, stop by at 8:30am or 9am to pitch in!

This Event will be canceled in case of heavy rain.    

Free and Open to the Public.

Calling all garden volunteers!  Bring your hand tools, gloves, and drinking water to the Sioux City Railroad Museum on Thursday, August 21st between 9am - Noon to help tidy-up the native pollinator gardens prior to the upcoming Garden Walk.  

This Event will be canceled in case of heavy rain.    

Free and Open to the Public.

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.

Join us for a Wild Things Welcome Happy Hour and workshop at Jefferson Beer Supply, on Tuesday, September 9th, to learn about our Loess Hills ecosystem and ways to engage with nature in your backyard.  The Loess Hills chapter of Wild Ones, will be providing information on how to introduce native plants to your backyard and a native seed-bomb making table for the little ones, or anyone else that would like to make seed bombs.

Jefferson Beer Supply is making a special beer to promote and celebrate the project, a Lemon Honey Wheat Ale with local flowers.  JBS will also have other alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages for sale.    

This event is free, open to the public, and family-friendly.

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.

Come join us for a Native Seed harvest at Bill & Dotty Zales' beautiful Prairie Hills homestead in Westfield on Saturday, September 27th from 1pm to 5pm.  A variety of native seeds will be harvested by hand.  

Bring clippers, garden gloves, and drinking water.  

Then join us for light refreshments and snacks, afterwards. 

Seeds harvested will be used to enhance local prairie restorations.

Join us for a Native Seed Harvest at the Stewart's beautiful Hilltop Gardens.  Volunteers will collect Native Seeds by hand which will be packaged and distributed through the LHWO's Seed Library later in the year.

Both novices and experienced harvesters are welcome.  Instructions will be provided.

Bring clippers, gloves, and drinking water. 

Details coming soon! 

Join us to clean-up a section of Lincoln Way along Sioux City's South Ravine Park.  We'll meet at the gravel parking lot at S. Ravine Park which is just East of the intersection of Lincoln Way and S.  Lewis Boulevard in Sioux City, IA.  

Hi-visibility vests and large orange plastic bags for collecting trash will be provided.  Bring your own drinking water, trash picker, garden gloves, and wear sturdy walking shoes.   

And then afterwards, join us for refreshments at the Stewart's Hilltop Gardens. 

This is always a very worthwhile event.  We hope you will join us for a little productive outdoor recreation and refreshment rewards afterwards.

Details coming soon!