2022
Check back often. Program requests come in throughout the year. We continue to add them here.
July 2022
July 12 (Tuesday) — 7:00 p.m. “Lose the Lawn, Create a Wildflower Meadow Instead”
This Webinar will help you learn how to enhance your property’s landscaping for wildlife by creating a wildflower meadow. Lawns are monocultures that are green deserts for wildlife, offering no cover, no food (nectar, seeds, etc.), and no beauty (blooming wildflowers and lovely native grasses). Consider turning some lawn into a wildflower meadow instead. Even a small “pocket meadow” will make a big difference to wildlife. A meadow can be simple to create, and Pat will share the basics. Learn how to convert lawn to meadow, how to maintain your meadow in a simple fashion over time, and how to make it acceptable and attractive to neighbors and visitors.
This presentation is part of the Jersey-Friendly Yards 2022 Webinar Series: “Back to the Basics: 8 Steps to a Jersey-Friendly Yard.” Webinars are free. These live sessions are an hour long with time for questions. All the topics are great learning opportunities. To learn of the topic line-up, see recordings of past webinars in this series (or previous series), or register for this webinar by Pat Sutton, click HERE.
July 19 (Tuesday), or if it rains July 20 – 9:30-10:30 a.m. “How to Maintain a Pollinator Garden in a Wildlife-friendly Way”
With the new Avalon Pollinator Garden in Armacost Park as the backdrop, Pat Sutton (educator, author, and long-time wildlife gardener) will cover how a more natural garden is a healthier garden to pollinators and gives the gardener a wonderful excuse to be a wee bit lazy and instead spend the time watching and documenting all the garden insect and bird visitors. Spent seed heads like Purple Coneflower, native sunflowers, and many others attract and feed hungry birds. Fallen seeds produce additional native plants in the garden, so mulch becomes less and less necessary as the garden ends up being mulched by plants themselves! Learn that leaving a garden standing all winter long is part of the plan. Next year’s butterflies and moths are in the overwintering vegetation: as eggs on curled up leaves, or as chrysalids or pupa on stems or under the fallen leaf layer. You WANT fallen leaves; they act as a blanket to overwintering beneficial insects, and they eventually decompose and enrich your garden naturally. A healthy pollinator garden uses NO INSECTICIDES, NO HERBICIDES, NO COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS, NO LEAF BLOWERS, NO DEADHEADING, NO INVASIVE PLANTS, and no unnecessary tidying up for tidy sake, because all that would make the garden a death trap to the very insects you are trying to attract.
Wild Bergamot, Rattlesnake Master, and Joe-pye-weed should all be in bloom (all pollinator magnets), so bring your binoculars. Too, with the large patches of various milkweeds in the garden, summer Monarchs should be present and busy mating and laying their eggs to create additional generations.
Meet at the NE corner of Armacost Park, 71st & Ocean Drive. This FREE outdoor lecture is co-sponsored by the Avalon Environmental Commission and the Avalon Free Public Library.
August 2022
August 9 (Tuesday), or if it rains September 20 — 9:30-10:30 a.m. “How YOU Can Help Pollinators in This Special Place and Why it is Important”
The Cape May Peninsula is world famous for bird, butterfly, and dragonfly migration, all of which is happening RIGHT NOW! Visitors come to the Cape from all over the US and abroad to witness this. If you live here, you can make a huge difference as to whether these migrants (Monarchs and songbirds) can refuel (find food) while here by providing a robust pollinator garden. With the new Avalon Pollinator Garden in Armacost Park as the backdrop, Pat Sutton (educator, author, and long-time wildlife gardener) will cover the basics of how you can attract and benefit pollinators. Plant it, a native plant pollinator garden (free of insecticides and heavy-handed maintenance), and they will come.
Hyssop-leaved Thoroughwort, a pollinator magnet, should be blooming, so bring your binoculars. We’ll also see if other pollinator favorites are blooming: Ironweed, Joe-pye-weed, Boneset, Mountain Mint, and Mistflower. Too, with the large patches of various milkweeds in the garden, summer Monarchs should be present and busy mating and laying their eggs to create additional generations.
Meet at the NE corner of Armacost Park, 71st & Ocean Drive. This FREE outdoor lecture is co-sponsored by the Avalon Environmental Commission and the Avalon Free Public Library.
September 2022
September 17 (Saturday) — Pat Sutton Tour of CU Maurice River Garden network in Millville, NJ ( Rain date Sunday, September 18)
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (Morning Tour)
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. (Afternoon Tour)
Pat Sutton will co-lead this tour with CU Staff (in the morning and again in the afternoon) who has been hard at work (along with terrific gardening volunteers and growing volunteers) designing and creating rain gardens and pollinator gardens with native plants at three public sites in Millville, NJ, in recent years: First United Methodist Church Serenity Garden, Downtown Millville’s Neighborhood Wildlife Garden, and Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center’s Circle Oasis. In addition, two private home gardens set in a suburban community will be on the tour. Join CU Maurice River and Pat Sutton to experience the benefits provided by these revitalized areas that together function as a network of urban green spaces supporting ecological and community health. Every garden is unique and has a story to be told.
Registration required. Cost: $30 for CU Maurice River members / $40 for non-members. After each outing, stay on to socialize and enjoy light refreshments in the garden. Sign up HERE . Call (856) 300-5331 for more information. In the past, Pat’s Garden Tours with CU Maurice River have filled up quickly. Please RSVP as soon as possible to be guaranteed a spot.
September 19 (Monday) BIRDS AND BIRDING AT CAPE MAY
Pat and Clay Sutton will present this program as part of the September 18-23, 2022, Birding Cape May Road Scholar program (formerly Elderhostel), led by Cape May Bird Observatory leaders. Registration required.
September 19 (Monday) — HAWKS IN FLIGHT
Clay Sutton will present this program as part of the September 18-23, 2022, Birding Cape May Road Scholar program (formerly Elderhostel), led by Cape May Bird Observatory leaders. Registration required.
October 2022
October 17 (Monday) BIRDS AND BIRDING AT CAPE MAY
Pat and Clay Sutton will present this program as part of the October 16-21, 2022, Birding Cape May Road Scholar program (formerly Elderhostel), led by Cape May Bird Observatory leaders. Registration required.
October 17 (Monday) — HAWKS IN FLIGHT
Clay Sutton will present this program as part of the October 16-21, 2022, Birding Cape May Road Scholar program (formerly Elderhostel), led by Cape May Bird Observatory leaders. Registration required.
October 20 (Thursday) — 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. “LEAVE THE LEAVES: How and When to Clean Up the Wildlife Garden,” presented by Pat Sutton for CU Maurice River at their CU Social
This ZOOM presentation will be centered on leaving the leaves and providing positive winter habitats in your own garden. Pat will share how she step-by-step cleans up her own 45-year old wildlife garden so that overwintering insects survive and repopulate her garden, favored plants thrive and multiply, and unwelcome plants are spotted and dealt with. She’ll share many special wildlife-friendly tips, like sparing sizable and sturdy winter plant stems as native bee nurseries.
All CU Socials are free for CU Maurice River Members and $25.00 per non-member. Click HERE to join as a member (annual cost of membership: $20 – individual / and $30 – family) and register for this program. Call (856) 300-5331 to double check that you are registered for this virtual program.