Update on Pawpaw Plantation: They’re Blooming!
May 26, 2016 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsYou perhaps already know from my “2015 Annual Report for Rare Plant Project” blog that I have been developing a... Read More →
Author Archives for Lon Drake
About Lon Drake
This old guy's favorite large-scale conservation projects include integrating soils, water, plants, and animals, especially native species. I still bike through my South Sycamore stormwater management system from 2001.
If You Build it, They Will Come – Including Mosquitoes
May 19, 2016 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsThe combination of warm and wet weather has arrived, and in its wake we have morels and mosquitoes. Iowa has... Read More →
Tips on Outdoor Hand Care
May 12, 2016 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsFollowing up on my blog about maintenance of conservation hand tools, I thought it appropriate to also post a note... Read More →
Hand Tool Maintenance Helps Make Conservation Planting a Snap
May 5, 2016 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsThe Prairie Green school kids spent Earth Day planting wild iris, sweet flag, and sedge sod chunks in our neighbor’s... Read More →
Looking to Outmaneuver Deer Flies?
April 21, 2016 6:00 pm 2 CommentsDeer flies love me, and perhaps they love you too. If you don’t know what deer flies are (lucky you!)... Read More →
Microclimates III: How To Recognize Them In The Field
April 14, 2016 6:00 pm 2 CommentsFollowing up on my last two blogs about how microclimates influence plants and animals, I also want to be sure... Read More →
Microclimates II: How Do They Affect Animals?
April 5, 2016 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsWasn’t Prairie Preview great? Only two years at the Celebration Barn and we are already overcrowded. Bur Oak Land Trust’s... Read More →
The Native Gardeners Dilemma: What is Really Native?
March 24, 2016 6:00 pm 3 CommentsMany years ago a grad student and I embarked on a strip mine reclamation project near Oskaloosa, Iowa. One of... Read More →
Things to be Grateful for, Every Winter
March 10, 2016 7:00 pm 2 CommentsWeek by week now winter is slowly relinquishing its hold on our landscape. And amongst friends, neighbors, and colleagues, I’m... Read More →
Microclimates are Important to Planting in Southeast Iowa
February 26, 2016 12:00 pm 4 CommentsSpring is coming, the nursery catalogs have arrived, and you’re getting anxious to plant something! I’ve found that so many... Read More →
