Friends of the Wildflower Garden
P. O. Box 3793
Minneapolis, MN 55403
News Update from the Friends
Garden entrance renovation
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) has finalized a design for a major renovation of the entrance approach to the Wildflower Garden.
The purpose of this renovation is outlined in the following MPRB project plan:
The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Entrance Renovation Project looks to renovate and reimagine the entrance into the wildflower garden. This project will improve the entry experience and access from the beginning as soon as visitors exit off Theodore Wirth Parkway all the way through the garden gates. Areas of focus include:
1. Improved walking trails and ADA access to the garden entrance gate from the existing parking lot.
2. A public gathering space for outdoor learning and education.
3. Enhanced welcoming experience by bringing the garden beyond the renovated entrance gate.
The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Renovation Project will build upon the vision outlined with the 2015-approved Theodore Wirth Regional Park Plan. This project will also follow guidance by the 2022 community findings that were developed and recommendations at that time.
Below: The final design conception for the Garden entrance renovation. - Image - MPRB.
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Two public meetings plus an open house were held and an on-line survey was available for interested parties to comment.
The MPRB planners have had two meetings with the Friends board of directors to review the project and receive our comments. We will continue to be involved as this project moves forward.
For details of the final proposed design and for updates on this project please visit the Wildflower Garden section of the MPRB web site.
The 2025 Volunteer Appreciation Event.
Sunday October 26 was the date of the 2025 volunteer event sponsored by the Friends and the Wildflower Garden.
Eighty volunteers were able to register for the event, held at 5PM at Lake of the Isles Lutheran Church. The Friends provided food from Christo's, beverages by Friends board members, and over 60 raffle gifts. The Wildflower Garden provided dessert and a take-home gift, this year a pack of Garden notecards.
Garden Curator spoke of this past season at the Garden, Friends president Jennifer Olson spoke, introduced special guests from the MPRB administration and conducted the raffle.
A special quest was Michael Jones, MPRB planner, who presented the final design concept for the Wildflower Garden entrance area renovation.
The 2025 Guest Lecture Meeting
The Annual Friends of the Wildflower Garden Guest Lecture was Tuesday, October 14, 2025 at 7PM in the Fireside Room, Eddie Manderville Chalet, Theodore Wirth Regional Park .
Phyllis Root spoke on her new book Chasing Wildflowers.
Presenting her adventures of chasing wildflowers throughout their unique Minnesota habitats. Phyllis is author of 50 children’s books including the Big Belching Bog, Plant a Pocket of Prairie, and The Lost Forest. She and photographer Kelly Povo have written Searching for Minnesota’s Native Wildflowers and their newest book Chasing Wildflowers.
Big Hill Books in Bryn Mawr was on hand selling Root's books and sold out all copies of the book.
The meeting was also available via Zoom .
Below: Phyllis Root discussing her book Chasing Wildflowers at the October 14 Friends Lecture.
Photo G D Bebeau
Friends Board of Directors for 2026.
On Tuesday evening October 14, Friends annual supporters elected a new board of directors for the coming year.
the Directors are:
Gary Bebeau, Colin Bartol, Candyce Bartol, Mary Bolla, Joelle Hoeft, Bruce Jarvis, George Lawson, Jennifer Olson, Jim Proctor, Pam Weiner.
MPRB celebrates The Friends
On Thursday evening July 17 the leadership of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) held an event celebrating the work of the Friends of the Wildflower Garden over the past decades.
Superintendent Al Bangoura specifically highlighted two recent efforts - the Friends $95,000 contribution for completing the new fencing on the east side of the Wildflower Garden and the 20 years of effort of the Friends Invasive Plant Action Group (FIPAG), initiated and led by Jim Proctor, in removing invasives and restoring native habitat in Volunteer Stewardship Area surrounding the Garden. Fittingly, the event was held on the southeast hillside next to the new fence and overlooking the hillside where the volunteers of FIPAG have been restoring the oak savanna habitat that once covered that area of the Wirth Park.
Besides Mr. Bangoura, Commissioner Meg Forney, Friends President Jennifer Olson and Jim Proctor spoke, followed by a tour of the restoration area led by Jim Proctor.
Thanks to Superintendent Bangoura, Commissioner Forney, the leadership of the Environmental Stewardship Division of the MPRB and Garden Curator Susan Wilkins, all of whom were present, for putting on this event, and to all the volunteers who enable the success of the Friends.
Below: MPRB Commissioner Meg Forney speaking at the Friends celebration. Superintendent Al Bangoura at right. Photo G D Bebeau.
FIPAG has a new name.
The Volunteer Stewardship Area which surrounds the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden has been renamed "The Greater Eloise Volunteer Stewardship Area." Improving the natural habitat in this area which buffers the Wildflower Garden has been the focus of the Friends Invasive Plant Action Group (FIPAG) since 2007. In accord with the renamed area, FIPAG volunteers will now be called "Greater Eloise Stewards."
Restoration work in the oak savanna and in the north meadow:
The Greater Eloise Stewards have been busy every month this year primarily east and southeast of the Wildflower Garden, clearing buckthorn, garlic mustard, planting, protecting the slopes with wattles and controlling new buckthorn growth.
The photos below show the development of the area tentatively named “Anwatin savanna,” near a large pond with all the non-native woody plants removed or cutback for further treatment. Seeds of dozens of species that were spread in the fall and over the winter are germinating on the greening slopes. Sedges are flourishing.
Below: Summer 2025. This panoramic photo shows the entire hillside down to the pond with the corner of the new Garden fence at the left. Photo Jim Proctor
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Below: A partial view of the hillside and pond after the initial removal of buckthorn. The stumps are later stripped of new growth and die. Photo Jim Proctor.
Below: No, these are not foragers, but FIPAG volunteers uprooting buckthorn plants and stripping new growth from previously cut buckthorn in Wirth Park. Photo - Jim Proctor.
A list of species seeded includes: Poverty oat grass, wood reed grass, gray wood sedge, beak grass, nodding fescue, little bluestem, side-oats grama, black-eyed Susan, shooting star, Canada milk-vetch, partridge pea, ground plum, white and purple prairie-clover, leadplant, prairie dropseed, junegrass, cream wild indigo, whorled milkweed, bottlebrush grass, and many more!
In late summer The Greater Eloise Stewards have been uncovering parts of the past in the meadow north of the Wildflower Garden’s back fence and gate. This area was once open marsh and meadow with scattered trees on higher spots. It was kept moist by springs, seeps and water draining from Eloise Butler’s wildflower reserve.
In recent decades views of the area have been obscured by the growth of dense forests of buckthorn. The paths in the area which lead to the Garden’s back gate, once a tunnel of buckthorn are now being cleared so the native plants that once were abundant there can receive sunlight and regenerate or be re-introduced as necessary. Historically, this is the area where Eloise Butler created her Mallard Pool in 1932.
Below: Part of the extensive clearing of buckthorn in the north meadow done this past month by the Greater Eloise Stewards.
60 Friends-supported land stewardship volunteers have contributed more than 580 hours in the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Volunteer Stewardship Area (warmly referred to as the Greater Eloise VSA) from January 1-June 1, 2025 with support from the Garden Curator.
Volunteer Greeters:
In 2025, Friends volunteers have staffed both the entry Kiosk and the shelter for the 55th consecutive year, the Martha Crone Shelter. Over 55,000 people were engaged at the Garden with staff and volunteers. Fifty volunteers went through training. By Garden closing date over 2000 hours of volunteer time had been logged this year.
Your donations
You should know that your support contributions to the Friends are entirely used for these Garden projects and our other mission programs. Our administrative expenses are small, on average, 5% of revenue or less, and these expenses are funded from non-contribution revenue.
If you want to read more about the historical aspects of the Garden and the things the Friends have accomplished over the last 73 years visit the "garden history tab" and the "Friends history tab." Links at the bottom of this page.