Being in your Yard and Children’s Garden Club – Nicholas Citrin with Cloverwall and Douglas Wolter with STL County Parks Children’s Garden Club

Being in Your Yard – Nicholas Citrin with Cloverwall

Being in your yard without mosquitoes is just what Cloverwall is all about. Nicholas Citrin with Cloverwall shares their approach to mosquitoes. The main reason people have mosquitos in their yard is due to standing water. Cloverwall first maps out all the standing water on the property along with what can be done about it in their full report. Any standing water that remains is treated with a larvicide, safe for fish, so the mosquitoes can’t breed in the water. After that, depending on the products you are using and your surrounding areas they use an all-natural product based on botanicals, or a synthetic that lasts a little longer. It is based on a pyrethroid which is dried from a chrysanthemum flower. All their deer products are all natural and they offer recommendations. They also offer a repellent rotation program. While they are the same repellants you can get on your own, they apply it on a more frequent basis and to make sure the deer aren’t eating the plots they are treating.

Children’s Garden Club – Douglas Wolter with St. Louis County Parks

We stopped by the Children’s Garden Club booth at the St. Louis Home and Garden Show to visit with Douglas Wolter of St. Louis County Parks and Recreation. He works with the Children’s Garden Club, which is now 18 years old.The Children’s Garden Club is designed to educate, as well as bring delight in gardening and horticulture with projects they start themselves and take home to continue to grow and enjoy. All meetings are at 9:00 a.m. on the first Saturday of each month (except July and September) – at different locations throughout St. Louis City and County.Children are in the booth making herb gardens and butterflies. The butterflies were very popular at the Muny Children’s event. The Muny is an outdoor theater, a hidden jewel in St. Louis, which offers musicals each summer. The Children’s Garden Club participated at Muny events, especially centered around the annual children’s show.Butterflies are pollinators and important to our food supply. The Pollinator Project is a Children’s Garden Club event where kids learn about pollinators and get to plant “Pollination Stations” to take home. The Children’s Garden Club works with the Missouri Botanical Garden to offer the program. GreenScape is an avid supporter of Project Pollinator and has been involved around the world with their work.

Parting thoughts from Doug…

One tip to do something to improve the relationship between people, plants and insect world
and wildlife – “learn, educate yourself about our environment.”
“If we could plant one thing, it should be for the butterflies – milkweed! Don’t want to plant any
one thing – the diversity is the secret.”