Events

Registration is required for this event. Register by sending an email to Mel Luna at [email protected]. 

We will send you the address upon registration.

Registration deadline: June 1.

The property spans 80 acres near the Ross Coastal Plain Marsh, situated between two prominent glacial moraines—the Lake Border Moraine and the Valparaiso Moraine—formed by retreating glaciers during the last Ice Age.

A highlight of the landscape is a 2-acre, man-made pond, created for a geothermal system in a dune area with a naturally high water table. The disturbed seedbed around the pond has erupted with an array of native “volunteers.” Among these are St. John’s wort, rose pink (Sabatia angularis), nodding ladies’ tresses (Spiranthes cernua), bog violets (Viola lanceolata), wild roses, serviceberry, cherry, multiple goldenrod and aster species, native grasses, sedges, willows, and many more. We also actively manage the less welcome non-native invasives that volunteered.

The duneland woods on the property  includes Roger’s Creek and tributaries, with  over 5 miles of trails. The canopy includes Eastern white pine, oaks, maples, hemlocks, tulip trees, walnuts, hickory and sycamores. The understory includes pawpaw, serviceberry, witch hazel, catalpa, spicebush, viburnum, gray dogwood, a variety of spring ephemerals, club mosses, at least 18 fern species and much more. 

We have experimented—sometimes successfully, often not—with planting many dozens of varieties of native grasses, wildflowers, and shrubs in the pure sand around the home. In late July, we anticipate  coneflowers, rosinweed, blazing stars, downy sunflower, rudbeckias, hairy petunia, and bee balm to be among plants in bloom.

There’s a bocci court and horse shoes for folks who’d like to hang out and enjoy the landscape for awhile.  

We look forward to sharing our ongoing journey with fellow native plant enthusiasts.