I have just posted on the Pleasant Valley Conservancy website a new Power Point presentation (converted to PDF), that provides an overview and brief history of PVC. You can access…

This is the time of year when white indigo (Baptisia alba) seed stalks break off and blow away. They act like "tumbleweeds", getting blown across the prairie. The seeds of…

This is the time of year to be thinking about spring burns. We have been burning at Pleasant Valley Conservancy for almost 20 years now, and the program set out…

This post is based on thoughts arising from an extensive blog post of Steve Packard's, which can be found at this link. "Our true natural areas are often tiny remnants…

The new Monarch butterfly initiative of the NRCS is focusing extensively on milkweeds. Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweeds, where their caterpillars grow and pupate. Three species of milkweeds seem…

One of the reasons Pleasant Valley Conservancy (PVC) is so scenic is because it is in the "heart" of southern Wisconsin's famous Driftless Area. The rugged hills exist in our…

By late October most of the native species have either turned color or lost their leaves. Anything green now is almost certainly nonnative (bad). This is a great time to…

Upland boneset (Eupatorium sessilifolium) is a Special Concern species in Wisconsin and Threatened in Michigan. As the Wisconsin State Herbarium map shows, it has a narrow distribution in the southern…

This is the time of year when all restorationists are seeding red! This is the best time to seek out invasive shrubs that can potentially cause trouble in a restoration…

I have posted on Canada goldenrod eradication in the past.  My method was a leaf spritz with a low-volume high-concentration of Garlon 4 herbicide diluted in bark oil. [One part…