Pollinator garden  located between the church building and the parking lot are planned and cared for by church volunteers, . Volunteers weed and maintain the pollinator garden weekly on Wednesdays at 10 a.m. during the growing season. Please join us on Wednesday!! But we welcome help at other times also. If your Small Group or any other group is looking for service opportunities, helping on the church ground and on the pollinator/perennial gardens or the orchard is a great opportunity.

Below is a list of what we are working on. The list will be updated periodically.
Please contact Dell Salza (808-778-4564), Tom Gibson or Debbie Wright (715-308-4739) if you want guidance. More contact information is in the church directory.

8-5-2025
 This week we should concentrate on the orchard.  The path needs clearing. There is grass, plantains and other weeds growing. It would be good to eliminate them and thus clear the way for our ever expanding perennials.  If you are not sure if it’s a desired plant or a weed you can use google lens , Seek or other identification tool, Or just remove any plant in the pathway through the middle of the orchard. The pathway is lined with stones.

We also want to keep the bed next to the building between the two door free of weeds. Any plant in that area can be removed.
Thanks for your help!!

Tom and Dell

7-22-2025
Dear hard-working Pollinator Protectors :
*Remove or Kill Spotted Lantern Fly
I (Dell) discovered this morning that spotted lantern flies have found our UU garden! I murdered about 5 of them on our grapevine which they are in the process of decimating. We have an insecticidal soap, safe for plants, which anyone is welcome to use if you want to go hunting for them. They are extremely invasive and damaging. Does anybody have any thoughts on whether we should take down the grapevine, considering lantern flies especially like fruit plants? Please check the orchard and kill any that you see.

Lou power-washed and sanded all the benches. They look so much better! He’s planning to put food-grade tung oil on them. He also watered the entire garden today with water from the cisterns. 

Since last week, I’ve chopped up the clay, mixed it with tilth soil, and put a top layer of tilth soil in 2-1/2 sections of the garden. It’s exhausting work as some of you know. 

The pile of tilth soil on the west side of the parking lot has been distributed, so we just have the one on the east side. Some of that will have to be brought over to the partially finished section on the west side. So what have we got for jobs?

           Move soil

           Mix tilth with clay where it hasn’t been mixed

           Put layer of tilth soil on top of mixed layer

           Weed – including weeds in pathway

           Deadhead daisies and others

           Take birdbaths in and clean them in utility room

           Remove monarda which is covered with powder mildew 

                    and not happy where it is

You may see other things that need to be done that I haven’t thought of.

Thanks so much for your time and hard work to make this garden a healing and peaceful place for people as well as a paradise for pollinators!

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