Winter 2025
December Nature Connection
December 17th
December Nature Connection
December 17th
December’s Nature Connections session is hosted by Botanical Belonging’s founder and native plant expert, Patti Ragsdale.
This virtual gathering will focus on what winter looks like behind the scenes at Happy Apple’s Farm — from caring for plants through the cold months to how the team prepares the land, gardens, and growing spaces for the season ahead.
The session will wrap up with an open Q&A. Questions do not have to be limited to the topic of the night — come ready to ask about your own gardens, plants, or anything else you’ve been curious about.
Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just getting started, this is a relaxed, informative way to learn from behind the scenes and stay connected to the land during the quiet season.
In case you missed our August Nature Connection: Seed Collecting & Fall Planting, you can now watch it on our Youtube channel here!
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Past Events
Bi-monthly Nature Connections: Seed Collecting & Fall Planting. Join native plant expert Patti Ragsdale for a practical virtual session all about seed collecting & fall planting! Whether you’re hoping to save seeds from your favorite native blooms or curious about the best way to plant for a strong spring showing, Patti has you covered. She’ll spend the first 30 minutes teaching and sharing. The last 30 minutes will be open for Q&A from attendees.
Hasta Luego Monarchs! The Johnson County Extension Master Naturalists, in association with Monarch Watch, are hosting a free, family-friendly Pollinator Event to say “hasta luego” to the magnificent Monarch butterfly! We have some activities planned at our table, and would love to see some familiar faces stop by and say hello!
Spirit of Activism Retreat. Join us for a day of resiliency and relaxation. This event will be co-hosted by our own Patti Ragsdale and Sami Aaron with The Resilient Activist. Throughout the day, you’ll be guided through mindful practices that help you reconnect with yourself and the earth. These practices will support your journey toward emotional resilience, helping you process grief, stress, and eco-anxiety while gaining clarity and strength for continued action in the fight for environmental justice.
Plant Potting Party. We’re hosting a Plant Potting Party — and you’re invited! Come get your hands dirty as we transfer our seedlings from trays into pots. It’s a great way to learn about native plants, meet fellow plant lovers, and take home a little green friend of your own.
Guided Nature Walk: Rare Remnant Prairie. Remnant prairies are ancient ecosystem (think 10,000 to 12,000 years) that hold diverse, deep-rooted plant communities. Before settlement, prairie stretched across more than 170 million acres of North America—but now, less than 4% of it is left. That makes places like this rare and incredibly important. Join us and visit a wild and resilient piece of land. With Patti along as your guide, you’ll have the chance to slow down, notice more, and deepen your own connection to the rare prairie landscape.
Bi-monthly Nature Connections: Don’t Fear the Shears! Join on us live on Zoom during June’s Nature Connection! Patti will connect live from her gardens to demonstrate how to confidently prune your native beds. This will be followed by 30-minutes of Q&A with participants. Please know your questions don’t have to be about the event topic. Come ready to use Q&A to ask all your burning native plant questions.
Volunteer Training Day. This is a great opportunity to connect with other volunteers and staff, learn how Happy Apple’s Farm operates, and gain the skills to manage different gardens. After attending a training day, come join us during the open volunteer times every Tuesday and Thursday from 10-3pm and watch your native plant knowledge and confidence grow!
Guided Plant Hikes at Stable M. Stable M is a nearby 73-acre private property named for the horse stable, “M,” on site. We’ll take a stroll on mowed trails to explore a diversity of habitats, including high-quality woodlands, glades, floodplain forests, and a 10-acre lake. Even the grazed pastures are full of native prairie species! We’re also learning to use iNaturalist, a free app that’s great for identifying plants and recording our observations. We’re up to 193 observations of 134 species! Learn more or watch the virtual wrap-up event on YouTube.
Botanical Belonging Fall Open House. (Saturday October 19 at Happy Apple’s Farm) Whether you’re a neighbor or someone who’s been curious about our work, this is the perfect chance to stop by, explore what we do, and enjoy a relaxed fall afternoon. (Learn more)
Prairie Explorers 2024. By allowing children to explore a prairie firsthand, we can offer a more intimate experience with nature that allows the children to observe the many aspects of the prairie ecosystem and observe the interactions of the life that is part of it. Each of the sessions of the Prairie Explorers youth program will cover a different aspect of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem, and will include a scavenger hunt and short activity/lesson.
Botanical Belonging at Hasta Luego Monarchs! (Saturday September 28 at the Pollinator Prairie, Olathe, KS). This free, family-friendly Pollinator Event is to say “hasta luego” to the magnificent Monarch butterfly! Monarch Watch hosted butterfly tagging and releasing demonstrations, Johnson County Extension Master Naturalists brought their “Caterpillar Wonders,” Parsons’ Gardens sold native plants, and more local conservation groups had information, exhibits, and games.
Botanical Belonging at Go Green 2024! (Powell Community Center, Mission, KS). This free family-friendly environmental fair will show you how taking small steps to reduce your carbon footprint at home, school and work will help the environment and save money. Local businesses and nonprofits will provide information and items to help you live a more sustainable life.
Native Plants Workshop (2024 at the Eudora Giving Garden, Eudora, KS). In this four-part workshop series at the Eudora Giving Garden, we planted and tended a new prairie garden. Participants joined in, learned skills to grow native plants at home, and got to know the plants we picked for this new garden and how to care for them.
Creating Native Habitat in Your Yard (Thursday Aug 29, 2024 at Paola Free Library, Paola, KS). At this class, we dug deep into how to transform your yard into a wildflower paradise that not only brings you joy but helps wildlife as well. We discussed when to plant and what species to focus on, and the benefits native plants bring to our local wildlife.
Virtual Orientation: Botanical Field Trip to Stable M (March 28, 2024) At this orientation, executive director Patti Ragsdale told the story of the Stable M property we’ll be exploring over the course of the 2024 season. Then Anna Funk, our board president, walked us through how to use the free app iNaturalist to identify plants, record your observations, and view others’ observations at the site. Watch the recording.
Establishing a Garden Space and Creating a Native Garden Plan (March 23, 2024) The Eudora Giving Garden in partnership with Botanical Belonging is creating a new Prairie Garden in 2024 featuring plants native to our area. This was the first workshop of the 3-part series created to empower interested community members to participate and learn skills to grow native plants at home.
Free Elderberry (February 24 and 25, 2024) Come and learn about our native Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) and take some plants home! We’re taking advantage of this beautiful weather to invite people to participate in thinning out our bounty of Elderberry. It’s a beautiful plant with a lovely fragrance and edible berries. It also forms thickets, and we are removing two of our thickets to make room for maintenance around the new community growing space. There will be more rhizomes than you can imagine, so plenty to share.
Community Meetings (January 6, January 16, and February 3, 2024) We are hosting community outreach events at our local libraries. Botanical Belonging is a registered 501(C)(3) non-profit located on the Kansas side of the Kansas City Metro area. We are dedicated to providing hands-on native plant learning for our community. Join us for informational meetings to discover what “botanical belonging” means, learn about our facility, and meet our founder, Patti Ragsdale. We hope you’ll come with your native plant questions and help us explore ideas for how Botanical Belonging can help us all get to know the native plants around us!
Burn Demonstration (February 1, 2024) Would you like to learn more about prescribed burning in prairies? We are inviting folks to join and watch (or help if you’d like) as we burn a small area in our prairie. We will discuss some of the ways we prepare for these burns, what tools we find helpful, and demonstrate how fire behaves in grasslands. We hope you’ll come, even if you only wish to watch and learn why burning is such a valuable tool for grassland management.
Fall Family Prairie Experience (September 15, October 4, and October 21, 2023) Fall is a very special time in the gardens and in the prairie. Purples, yellows, and russets begin to dominate the landscape, hailing the final weeks of the growing season. Asters, goldenrods, and bonesets provide vital nutrition for insects hoping to survive winter here or migration to warmer climates. All ages are welcome to this event, and children are especially encouraged to come, help gather seeds to take home, and say farewell to the Monarch butterflies as they begin their journey south.
Native Plant Seed Collecting (again!) (August 31, 2023) Join us for another fun evening at Happy Apple’s Farm exploring what seeds are ready now and help us collect what we find. We will discuss any processing that’s needed, storage, and send you home with a few to try for yourself. No experience required. We provide supplies. This is an outdoor event, so dress appropriately for the weather. Sunscreen and bug repellent are recommended.
Native Plant Seed Collecting (August 29, 2023) Join us for a fun evening at Happy Apple’s Farm exploring what seeds are ready now and help us collect what we find. We will discuss any processing that’s needed, storage, and send you home with a few to try for yourself. No experience required. We provide supplies. This is an outdoor event, so dress appropriately for the weather. Sunscreen and bug repellent are recommended.
Let’s Start a New Prairie Reconstruction! (December 4, 2022) Join us as we burn a small area of Brome to begin a new prairie reconstruction at Happy Apple’s Farm. Safety is the first priority, so registration is required to attend. Participants are welcome come as spectators as well as helpers. Helpers must have appropriate clothing as described in registrations. But simply watching as small areas are cleared is a great way to start learning how to conduct prescribed/controlled burns.
Front Yard Prairie Burn at Happy Apple’s Farm (November 20, 2022) Join us for a very fun morning burning our front yard. We began reconstructing the prairie in our front yard in 2017 with our first-ever burn. It’s a great and safe place to learn about prescribed burning. And participants can either watch from a distance…like our front porch…or get involved helping on the edges. We’re excited to welcome anyone interested in learning more about how a homeowner/landowner might conduct a burn or anyone who is curious about conducting a small controlled burn. Space is limited and registration is required. Burns are very weather-dependent. So we’ll watch the weather closely and stay in touch with registrants. Registration for this free event was required.
Seed Collecting at Blazing Star Prairie (November 3, 2022). Join Botanical Belonging as we explore and collect seeds at Blazing Star Prairie with Courtney Masterson and Ryan Riedel. The prairie is a remnant located behind their home, the headquarters of Native Lands. As we hike into the prairie, you’ll learn to identify several species that are ready for seed collection such as Rattlesnake Master (Eryngium yuccifolium), Slender Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum teniufolium), and Thickspike/Prairie Blazingstar (Liatris pychnostachya). Attendees will be encouraged to take seeds home for use in their gardens! The majority of the seeds collected will support the efforts of Native Lands and Botanical Belonging in providing native plants and seeds to the community through local libraries and events, as well as in the planting of new prairie spaces in the area. Every seed collected makes a difference!
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