Calendar of Events and Programs

Last month we enjoyed a stroll through a prairie; this month, spend some time with us in the shade!

* Location details: 1084 East College Avenue, Westerville, 43081. There is ample street parking on College Avenue or nearby courts and side streets. As you walk up the driveway, follow the gravel path to the right to access the backyard where we will be meeting. *

Mark and Chris Dilley, Partner-Owners of Scioto Gardens Nursery, invite you to tour their "work in progress" native landscape, which includes over 100 species of native herbaceous forbs, grasses, shrubs and trees. Their backyard provides partial to full shade, and they have a variety of spring ephemeral wildflowers, summer bloomers, ferns, and shrubs that are appropriate to these conditions.

Canopy trees include Red and Silver Maple, Red Oak, River Birch, with younger Bitternut Hickory, American Elm, and Ohio Buckeye, plus several Redbud trees. Featured beds include their "Little Prairie on the House", the River Birch Bed near their fire ring, the Wetland Thicket, and two newer (as yet to be named) beds that they are still working to fill with natives. The area around their patio supports "twice rescued" Wild Geranium, Virginia Waterleaf, Green Dragon and many other wildflowers and shrubs, including Hydrangea, Hazelnut, Winterberry Holly, and Ninebark. Trees that have been gifted to them by their resident chipmunks and squirrels often get dug out of beds that are too close to the house and transplanted into their clover lawn yard, adding additional habitat and shade.

One of Mark's passions has been serving as a Bluebird Landlord, and his nesting pair of Eastern Bluebirds has already fledged two broods of five in 2023, adding 10 more bluebirds to the neighborhood population. With any luck, this pair will be on their third nest when the tour rolls around!