Events

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.