The Montana Native Botanic Garden on the University of Montana campus in Missoula was established in 1967 around the greenhouse of the Natural Sciences Building, just west of the University Center. In early 2015, the garden was renamed in memory of its two principal founders, Klaus Lackschewitz and Sherman Preece. MNPS members are the key reason why this garden is still here today.
Celebrating the Native Garden’s 50th birthday in 2017, the UM produced a short video.
- A beautiful graphic depiction of the current garden layout around the Natural Science Building, the Garden Brochure can be printed out or viewed on your device.
- “A Native Journey,” by Ryan Newhouse of the Montanan, describes how the garden was founded, saved and expanded.
- “The Gem of the Montana State Arboretum: Missoula’s Own Native Plant Garden” by Barb Riggs, is a paper about the value and history of the garden.
- “Native Plant Gardeners Honored,” by Kelly Chadwick, was published in the Kelseya in the summer of 2005.
This 2011 article is from the Missoulian and is reprinted here by permission:
Volunteers tend to native plants at UM garden
By Betsy Cohen Missoulian; used by permission
MISSOULA – It takes knowledge, patience and a sense of humor to nurture wild things in a civilized world. Just ask the ladies – and the few bold men – who make up the old guard that watches over the Montana Native Plant Gardens at the University of Montana.
Lois Puckett, 78, has stories to tell about her rogue milkweed plants, so unruly they have run underground and far beyond the stone wall that was meant to contain them, only to appear together in a thick hedge against the Natural Sciences Building.
“You won’t see anything like it anywhere else,” explained an exasperated but cheerful Puckett. “It’s quite exotic really.”
And don’t get Peter Stickney started about his headache with the wandering yarrow – it has no sense of boundaries, explained the 82-year-old retired botanist.
These wise and wily gardeners are among a dedicated dozen who keep alive the wild flora of Montana at UM so that others may learn of their beauty and their ecological place in this vast state.
Because of their expert hands and with their undaunted coaxing, UM’s Natural Sciences Building is ringed by micro-habitats – everything from wet meadows to xeric steppe – that is home to more than 300 different species of plants.
Jean Pfeiffer, 84, nurtures a large section of the garden dedicated to high alpine plants and flowers. “I used to spend so much time up high in the mountains, but I can’t get up there anymore,” she said, “so I’m trying to grow those plants here so I can still enjoy them – and so others can, too.”
Originally established in 1967 as a collaborative effort of faculty and students from the Department of Botany, Pfeiffer, along with Jean Parker, initiated a garden resuscitation in 1989 after the wild plants endured about a decade of neglect.
Tenacious like the hardy bitterroot, the two Jeans organized a volunteer force to take over the garden and to generate public appreciation and knowledge of the plants that make Montana unique.
“At the time all of this got started again, native plants were not what people wanted,” said Sheila Morrison, 74. “People thought of them as weeds.”
“We were determined to show off the plants, and to teach people that they are attractive and valuable to our environments.”
Over the past 22 years, the group has collected wild seeds and grown wild plants to transplant into the gardens. They have given countless public tours of their handiwork, taught fledgling gardeners and served an outdoor classroom for budding botanists.
The greatest thrill of all, Morrison and Pfeiffer said, has been watching the greater Missoula community become more knowledgeable about native plants and to see more and more native gardens be planted across the city. It makes so much sense, Morrison said, because these plants are meant to live here.
Yet as the UM native plant gardens continue to grow and to inspire, the core group of volunteers who stepped up to maintain and further develop the various habitats two decades ago, are ready to hand off the work. “Our core group is on the verge of retiring and we need more volunteers,” said Alice Okon, the volunteer coordinator for the Montana Native Plant Gardens at UM. “We need new people to step up to help this wonderful work continue.”
While the longtime gardeners would like to give the heavy lifting to a younger set of green thumbs, they don’t plan to wholly give up their habitats.
“We will work with people and teach them about the plants,” Pfeiffer said.
Now is the time to get involved, said volunteer Kelly Chadwick.
“We need people now, and we have so many knowledgeable people to learn from,” Chadwick said. “And the work is fun.”
“There is a lot of experimental things that happen here because we are trying create different habitats,” she said. “We are always testing things and we are always learning.”
“Wild things don’t grow the same way in a garden, and that keeps things interesting.”