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Arkansas Master Naturalists

HomeNCAMN Native and Heritage Plant Gardens

Native Plant and Heritage Herb Gardens

NCAMN's garden teams work in the following locations—

Gaston Wildflower Meadow at Bull Shoals-White River State Park near Lakeview,

Heritage Herb Gardens of Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View,

Tyler Bend Visitor Center and Buffalo River Ranger Station on the Buffalo National River,

Mountain View School Pollinator Meadow at the public school district's solar array,  

Calico Rock Pollinator Gardens in a parking lot in old town Calico Rock, and

Flippin Wildlife Meadow in the air approach to the Marion County Airport.

Gaston Wildflower Meadow
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Gaston Meadow in Bloom
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GWFM All Workers Day May 16 2020
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GWFM Stone Cleanup Project
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Gaston Wildflower Garden
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GWFM Workday April 30 2020

NCAMN maintains the three-acre Gaston Wildflower Meadow and Trail by planting, seeding and nurturing native varieties in the meadow and in the beds around the pergolas while working to eliminate invasive and non-native plants. The team works March through November.

Contact: Paula Caprio or Barb Tietmeyer. 
Email: 
ncamn.contact@gmail.com


To read more about the activities of the GWFM volunteers, check this out! 2022 Gaston Wildflower Activities


Ozark Folk Center State Park 
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Volunteers assist Park Herbalist Tina Marie Wilcox in maintaining and planting the Park’s Heritage Gardens. The gardens include native woodland plants, as well as vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers cultivated for hundreds of years in the Ozarks. While working in gardens and greenhouse, volunteers learn about traditional culinary and medicinal uses of many plants and techniques for cultivating and propagating them. There are usually three work mornings each month throughout the year: first and third Wednesdays and first Fridays.

Contact: Donna Brocka.
Email: .ncamn.contact@gmail.com 


To read more about our volunteer work at OFC, view our annual report: 2022 NCAMN OFC Team Annual Report


Buffalo National River Volunteers
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Buffalo National River Volunteers maintain the beds at the entrance to the Tyler Bend Visitors Center and the Buffalo Point Ranger Station from April until October. Team members meet at the Tyler Bend Visitors Center on the 2nd Friday of the month. Each workday volunteers are encouraged to bring native plants from their own gardens for our "native plant swap". We work that morning, enjoy a picnic lunch and then caravan to Buffalo Point to tidy the beds there. On additional workdays, scheduled as needed, we assist the park personnel with other projects such as invasive species removal and historic cemetery clean up. 

To learn more about the work we do, please click this link to download our annual report:
2022 NCAMN Buffalo Nat'l River Volunteers Volunteer Report

Contact: Marilyn Fouts or Roger Pike. 
Email: ncamn.contact@gmail.com 


Mountain View School Pollinator Meadow
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This pilot project will turn the five-acre solar array belonging to the Mountain View School District into a home and resting area for butterflies and other species by planting and nurturing native plants. Photos above show volunteers during their first session spraying herbicide to remove invasive and non-native species.

The solar field will become a win/win situation for the school and for threatened butterflies like the Monarch and Diana Fritillary as well as many other pollinator species. The plantings will not affect the solar panels because NCAMN will use a native plant seed mixture and plantings that are specially formulated not to grow taller than the solar panels. This will also provide an on-site science lab for students in kindergarten through 12th grade and 4-H members to experiment with native plants and a variety of science fair projects.

Contact: Jill Easton
Email: ncamn.contact@gmail.com


Calico Rock Pollinator Gardens
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For this new project, NCAMN will plant pollinator seed around a parking lot that the Calico Rock Community Foundation has built on Rodman Avenue just off Main Street in old town Calico Rock. NCAMN volunteers have been invited to put in two sets of pollinator plantings: one directly paralleling Rodman Avenue, the second a partially hidden shade garden below the parking lot.

Contact: Jill Easton
Email: ncamn.contact@gmail.com


Flippin Wildlife Meadow
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This new NCAMN project arose in early 2023—a joint effort with Flippin Airport Board and, in initial stages, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC). The new pollinator meadow will beautify the air approach to the airport, reduce maintenance costs, and, most importantly to NCAMN, provide new habitat for butterflies, bees, and other pollinators.

In 2022, Marion County Regional Airport in Flippin was contacted by the FAA to improve the clear zone to approach the runway. This required bulldozing the field across from the highway of all trees that might obstruct incoming air traffic. In March 2023, a bulldozer moved in and cleared all vegetation. It was a sad, naked hill. NCAMN and AGFC representatives met with the Airport Board and offered to plant and maintain a pollinator meadow. The meadow will be a bonus for the pollinators and a beautiful landscape for the community. The airport board agreed, and the Flippin Pollinator Meadow was born.

Creating a pollinator meadow is not a quick or simple process. First the existing vegetation including many invasives must be sprayed with herbicide and burned, the seed bank allowed to germinate, and the process repeated. (Photos above show the initial burn in summer 2023.) We hope to sow a pollinator mix especially formulated for the Ozark region in early spring 2024. 


Contact: Sara and Gary Gouge
Email: ncamn.contact@gmail.com


State and National Agency Partners