Gardening Articles

Discover the Park – Activities

Friends volunteers tend historic gardens on Raspberry, Michigan islands

Friends volunteers tend historic gardens on Raspberry, Michigan islands

More than a century ago, Apostle Islands lighthouse keepers and their families planted gardens as sources of food, beauty and pride. The traditions continue today, with help from Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.This month, two volunteer crews joined the National Park Service to plant and maintain gardens on Raspberry and Michigan Islands. The process involves loading locally-purchased plants, tools and supplies onto a Park Service boat, unloading and hauling everything up the stairs and getting to work. The gardens are designed to be historically accurate. The vegetable...

Friends volunteers tend Gaylord Nelson Memorial Garden, first of many gardening opportunities

Friends volunteers tend Gaylord Nelson Memorial Garden, first of many gardening opportunities

Prairie Alumroot - Jon Okerstrom photoThe first green shoots emerge from the warming earth as spring arrives in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Outside of park headquarters in Bayfield and on the grounds of iconic island lighthouses, the gardens will grow, with help from green-thumbed Friends of the Apostle Islands volunteers.A team of five volunteers recently worked in the Gaylord Nelson Memorial Garden, clearing away last year's plant debris, pulling weeds, placing signs identifying the plants and refreshing the wood chips covering the paths. The project organizer says the garden...

Friends wins $10,000 grant from 100 Who Care of Ashland and Bayfield Counties

Friends wins $10,000 grant from 100 Who Care of Ashland and Bayfield Counties

Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is honored to receive $10,000 from the local civic group, 100 Who Care of Ashland and Bayfield Counties. Group members chose to support Friends following a presentation by our Executive Director Jeff Rennicke. He outlined how we would put $10,000 to good use, enhancing boater safety with the Wave Watch program, bringing history to life with our lighthouse gardening volunteers, offering scholarships for individuals with accessibility needs through our new Access Opportunity initiative, and inspiring the next generation of Lakeshore lovers...

Planting history: Friends helps NPS staff plant the Raspberry Island Lighthouse gardens

Planting history: Friends helps NPS staff plant the Raspberry Island Lighthouse gardens

76 steps. Count them, from the dock to the Raspberry Island Lighthouse grounds, even more to get to the top of the light. It is a long climb, so rest a moment and recall the words of Lee Benton, the long-time keeper of Raspberry Island Light. “I hope you noticed the beautiful flower gardens around the outside of the house. My wife Anna has a green thumb and loves to plant all sorts of flowers each year."As you catch your breath, let the collection of flower and vegetable gardens on the lighthouse grounds carry you back in time. The gardens, planted this year by volunteers from Friends of the...

Friends volunteers refresh Gaylord Nelson Memorial Garden for spring

Friends volunteers refresh Gaylord Nelson Memorial Garden for spring

Another sure sign of the spring: the Friends of the Apostle Islands volunteer gardeners hard at work on the Gaylord Nelson gardens at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. The garden, established in 2006, serves as a living legacy to Wisconsin Senator and Governor Gaylord Nelson who helped inspire Earth Day in 1970 and in the same year led the effort to establish the Apostle Islands as a National Lakeshore. Friends volunteers spent several hours weeding and tending to the wildflowers. When you visit the garden outside of Lakeshore headquarters at 415 Washington Avenue in Bayfield,  you...

Volunteers prep Gaylord Nelson Memorial Garden for a long winter’s nap and vibrant spring

Volunteers prep Gaylord Nelson Memorial Garden for a long winter’s nap and vibrant spring

Bayfield-area volunteers and native garden advocates met at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Headquarters in Bayfield for their annual fall cleanup in the Gaylord Nelson Memorial Garden. “It’s really a chance to get the garden ready for next Spring,” says Erica Peterson, one of the organizers. The group deadheaded spent flower heads but left the ones with seeds for dispersal. Flower stalks up to 14” were also left for native pollinators who make homes in the hollow stems. The group is always pleased to see the before and after. Together they put in a combined 20 hours of work, and it...

Friends volunteers lend their green thumbs, time and talent on Michigan Island

Friends volunteers lend their green thumbs, time and talent on Michigan Island

Gardening is an important part of the history of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Early lighthouse keepers planted fruit trees, vegetables and grains to provide nourishment for the body; they also planted flower gardens to nourish the soul. On Michigan Island, Elizabeth Lane raised three children where her husband, Ed, was keeper from 1902 until he retired in 1938. She also cultivated some amazing gardens. Of Elizabeth, Coast Guard Chief Walter Parker said,“How she used to love to get up to that island and get at that garden of hers. That whole station was one mass of...

A day at the beach: Friends volunteers help to restore the Lakeshore’s sandscapes

A day at the beach: Friends volunteers help to restore the Lakeshore’s sandscapes

“Shhhhhhhhhh ….” Next to the drumbeat of the waves, it is the music of the wind dancing in the beach grass that is the quintessential sound along the beaches of the Apostle Islands. Waving and swirling, the grasses of a sandscape are the dance of the lake breezes. And, they are also a delicate, fragile, and all-too-often disturbed ecosystem. Recently, a cadre of volunteers from Friends of the Apostle Islands assisted the National Park Service with restoration work on the sandscapes of Raspberry Island and Little Sand Bay in an effort to protect these beautiful and important places for...

Lakeshore Logbook – Vicki Webster

Lakeshore Logbook – Vicki Webster

As part of our 50th Anniversary celebration, we are collecting and sharing the stories of people connected to the islands, whether they are park guests, former residents or former park employees. This is the sixth in our series called “Lakeshore Logbook,” a collection of memories provided by former National Park Service employees. Living and working in the park on a day to day basis, they’ve experienced a lot to be sure. We hope you enjoy their perspectives. Vicki Webster served in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore as a permanent STF park interpreter and as Acting Chief Interpreter. in...