The Symposium began this year's series with the lecture "Planting the vision" with speaker Sally Wilson on Thursday, January 28, 2021. Sally Wilson is a professor of Biology at MCC. She is also an Iowa State University Extension Master Gardener who has been gardening for over 50 years. She has helped to restore and maintain numerous prairie plantings, as well as herb and perennial gardens. Her capstone project for a recently completed MBA in Sustainability focused on Sustainable Landscaping on Multiple Iowa College Campuses. Her presentation summarized the findings of her research and focused on best practices in sustainable campus beautification and creating a vision for the MCC campus in years to come.

PowerPoint

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UgpJOAi8Emj7T8gFgUVpsd1kUmr8pXlM/view?usp=sharing

Zoom Video Recording

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17IgTdsNIMjfTJOQ0RELfwKkP2Ge-Ygjr/view?usp=sharing

On Thursday, February 25, 2021, the second lecture “Selecting, Planting and Caring for Trees in Central Iowa” was presented by Mark Monroe.

Mark is a Mathematician, Computer Scientist and Engineer who is also an Iowa Master Gardener. After 20 years in engineering and information technology with Maytag Corporation, Mark changed careers to follow his love of teaching. For the last 16 years he has been teaching math and occasionally computer science for Iowa Valley Community College. Mark has also occasionally taught evening courses for Buena Vista, DMACC and Simpson College. Mark became an Iowa Master Gardener seven years ago, and has focused mainly on native Iowa plants and trees. One of the presentations that truly influenced Mark during his training as a master gardener was a native Iowa plant talk given by Jim Kessler (also making a Shear-Colbert presentation in March). Other strong influences include Mark’s parents, who have been Larimar County Colorado master gardeners, providing expert tree health advice for over 20 years, and Iowa DNR tree health expert Tivon Feeley who is a phenomenal source of tree pathology information. Mark and his wife Judy live in a century old home surrounded by mature oak, hickory, river birch and black walnut trees. They have three grown children and two amazing granddaughters.

PowerPoint:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tLqXMEbc8_ln0YypNDO9SpgjH6Qdb1o5/view?usp=sharing

Zoom Recording:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OhEbZd9GUR-EGDJYA94CACPEBoSdvBCl/view?usp=sharing

The final speaker on March 25 was Jim Kessler. His lecture was entitled “Tallgrass Prairie Restoration: Restoring Biodiversity, Mind, Body, and Spirit.” Jim Kessler currently teaches Environmental Biology and Introductory Biology at Iowa Valley Community College – Grinnell. Jim taught Biology at Newton High School from 1972 – 2005. Jim and Kathy Kessler have restored 30 acres to native habitat south of Grinnell. The property includes reconstructed prairie and restored wetlands, stream banks, oak savannas, and oak/hickory woodland. They have donated 27 acres of the restored habitats to the Bur Oak Land Trust in Iowa City for perpetual preservation and management. Jim has shared presentations and workshops almost 100 times during the last 10 years about the importance of native plantings to pollinators, songbirds, other wildlife, and people. He has spoken at Iowa State University, Blank Park Zoo, the Loess Hills Prairie Seminar, the Bur Oak Land Trust's Prairie Preview in Iowa City, University of Iowa, University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Lynn County Garden Fair, the Siouxland Garden Show and to many community, conservation, environmental, and school groups in Iowa and other states including South Dakota, Illinois, and California.

The Tallgrass Prairie Restoration and reconstruction journey has been a wonderful experience for his family. This lecture explained how to prepare soil before planting; explored prairie seed sources and mixes; described a variety of planting methods; compared the results of late fall, winter, and spring plantings; explained how to manage the prairie planting for success including prescribed fire and weed control. Many pictures from his property illustrated the process. He showed pictures of the amazing diversity of pollinators, songbirds, and other wildlife that move into quality prairie habitat. During the lecture he described how prairie reconstruction and prairie wetland restoration have positively impacted the emotional, physical, and spiritual health of our family. Detailed materials describing prairie reconstruction and restoration techniques were made available to participants.

Zoom Recording:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10NrqRbNCnTYRzoXNiQQAGdGaoKavOIx2/view?usp=sharing

PowerPoint and other printable materials:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ye5LstqC4mK_EPoCQFZvxTu-g8tez67y?usp=sharing