On Sunday, August 21^st, the StMU prairie restoration team held its third event, inviting attendants to create art using pressed and fresh plants. Everyone selected the plants they wanted to make art with, placed them in between two pieces of blotting paper, and then smashed them with a hammer!

This process led to a huge variety of results, with each artwork coming out different. When attendants were satisfied with their blotting, they used a selection of dried plants for gluing onto the artwork, and to create leaf rubbings.

After the art was done, everyone toured the prairie restoration site on campus, to see native species up close and learn more about restoration work. This was an important experience for the team since most of the plants used for pressing and blotting were non-native. Harvesting non-native plants for this event was required, since native plants must be harvested in small amounts. Some of the plants we used were weeds!

If you are interested in invasive weed control, artwork like this is a great way to make use of weeds that may be growing in your neighbourhood. Species like creeping bellflower and tansy have flowers that look lovely pressed or blotted, and creeping thistle makes excellent leaf rubbings, just be careful of the spines! At the event, we also spoke about how to successfully maintain native plants in a garden, which will be the subject of next week’s blog post.

Thank you to everyone who came out and participated on Sunday, you made our event a huge success with your energy, enthusiasm, and creativity!