Friends of Valley Park & Gardens

09/11/2026

BIG praying mantis at the park last night!

09/10/2026

What a wonderful addition to our park!! Thank you!!

09/08/2026

The urge to cut every perennial down to tidy stubble each fall is understandable, but for a specific group of plants, that instinct actually works against both the plant and the wildlife depending on your garden through winter. These six perennials are genuinely better left standing rather than cut back at the end of the season.

Coneflower and black eyed Susan top the list for a reason tied directly to what happens after the flowers fade. Their spent seed heads are not just decorative texture through winter. According to the Xerces Society, standing seed heads on plants in the Asteraceae family provide a critical food source for overwintering birds, with goldfinches in particular relying heavily on coneflower and black eyed Susan seeds well into the colder months. Cutting these plants back in fall removes that food source entirely at a time when natural options are already scarce.

Lavender and sedum benefit from a different mechanism, one tied to the plant's own survival rather than wildlife. Both are somewhat marginally hardy in colder zones, and leaving the old woody stems and dried flower structures intact through winter provides genuine insulation for the crown of the plant, the same principle at work with hardy mums. Cutting lavender back hard in fall, rather than waiting until spring growth appears, is one of the more common reasons gardeners lose lavender plants that should otherwise have survived the winter fine.

Bee balm and yarrow round out the list, and both tie back to the pollinator and beneficial insect angle that runs through nearly every plant here. According to research summarized by the Xerces Society on overwintering habitat, many native bee species and beneficial insects use hollow or pithy plant stems as nesting sites through the cold months, meaning a stand of untouched bee balm stems left standing through winter may already be sheltering next spring's pollinators before a single new leaf appears.

The common thread across all six is that a perennial bed left standing through winter is rarely just visual laziness. It functions as active habitat, food source, and insulation all at once, doing quiet ecological work that a neatly cut back bed simply cannot provide. Come spring, once new growth is visibly emerging from the base of each plant, that is the ideal time to finally cut back the previous year's dried stems and seed heads, giving overwintering insects time to emerge first before their shelter disappears. 🍂

09/04/2026

Jack was a treasure and his guitar work with Jill providing vocals was a real pleasure for years

We wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the tragic passing of jazz and avant-garde guitarist Jack Grassel last week. When we were kids in the 1970s, our moms would drop us off at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music to see him perform as part of a duo with drummer Dave Ruetz — who happened to be Jay's drum teacher, and our way into finding Jack in the first place.

We'll never forget one of those shows when Jack stopped mid-set and said, "I'm not really a rock guitarist, but I do appreciate the things that Jimi Hendrix did for the instrument." And with that, he and Dave launched into a out-of-left-field version of Purple Haze. That was Jack — technically a jazz and avant-garde guy through and through, but always ready to blow your idea of what he was "supposed" to play.

Years later, when Jay was working at Record Head, Jack would pop in now and then to talk music and gear with the staff. Decades later, Jay sent him a copy of our song "The Pack is Back." Jack wrote back: "Excellent Music." Two words from a guy like that meant more than we probably let on at the time.

More recently, Jack and his wife Jill Jensen started inviting Jay and other friends over to their home for small, informal concerts they'd play — Jack still finding new ways to make and share music, sometimes on instruments he'd built himself, including a triple-necked guitar/bass/mandolin hybrid of his own invention.

Jack was a fixture of Milwaukee music for over 50 years, from his days in the genre-bending 1970s group What on Earth? to decades teaching at MATC. But for us, he'll always be that guy on the Conservatory stage tearing into Purple Haze, then the guy who wandered into a record store just to talk shop.

Watching Jack and Dave up there all those years ago planted something in both of us that never really left — you can probably trace a straight line from those Conservatory afternoons to every stage Couch Flambeau has ever played. Thank you for showing us what it looked like to spend a whole life chasing the sound.

09/02/2026

There they go!

**Lights Out Alert This Weekend**

Heads up birders, a lot of migration is expected during Labor Day Weekend. The fall migration season is about to kick into high gear. We have a unique set up this weekend as a strong area of low pressure in the Atlantic will be tilted just right to provide a wind from the north to northeast across the Northeast and eastern Great Lakes region. The low level wind flow will continue to guide birds toward the Gulf. Saturday night will likely be the biggest migration night of the weekend with more than 300 million birds in flight. We are about 2-3 weeks away from the fall migration peak. You can help by turning off those outdoor lights on big migration nights.

09/01/2026

Upper gardens looking good!

08/26/2026

come on down to Meta House at 4pm Friends group is sponsoring the Ice cream social!

08/25/2026

Valley Park maintenance has been a challenge this year.

-The front flower bed suffered from the July drought. It's looking better now.
- Concern has been expressed about the height of the bushes in that front bed. Unfortunately an infestation of ground bees, aka yellow jackets, has made it impossible to work on them until a good freeze.
-The planting beds on either side of the stairs are very overgrown. MMSD will be taking out all the vegetation pursuant to their levy maintenance plan. Because of their plans we have not maintained these beds. Unfortunately, MMSD keeps delaying the project, leaving the area in limbo. Fortunately today we were able cut down most of the w**d trees along the upper sidewalk.

Come on down on Thursday night at 5:30 to see for yourself! Bring your clippers and gloves to help out!

08/18/2026

Bye bye birdies.

BIRD MIGRATION! The first bird surge of the season has brought much higher than expected bird activity Monday night. An estimated 232,000,000 birds are on the move, tracked by Doppler Radar moving South/Soutwest at 18 mph around an altitude of 2,100 feet. This data is according to BirdCast shows the highest concentration from the Great Lakes heading south across the Mississippi River Valley!

07/25/2026

we had TEN children helping at the garden last night!!!! lots of watering and w**ding and fun!