Indiana Phenology is very excited to announce, Wildergarden, as our newest partner site for our Trail Program! This partner site is a little gem located in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis. Wildergarden is a new-growth forest located on a residential parcel of land. In 1993, Julia Wilder began the process of transforming it from a turf grass yard through the process of passive restoration. Now, as a 501(c)3 non-profit, they want to inspire others to let their yards go wild!
We are excited to welcome this new kind of nature area to the Indiana Phenology Trail! We're currently looking to expand the program with different types of nature areas throughout Indiana. Our application for new trails is open!
When a site becomes a partner for the Trail Program, Indiana Phenology creates educational materials and provides training to site workers and volunteers. In July, our executive director, Amanda Wanlass, visited Wildergarden to train them on how to set up and use Nature's Notebook to record phenology observations. Then, we created phenophase guides for the all the different species that Wildergarden wanted to observe. These phenophase guides look like this:
Going forward, Wildergarden will create phenological data that will help scientists understand climate change and its impacts. And the data will also give Wildergarden insights into their plants and animals year after year. So the results of this program benefit both the specific natural site and the field of climate science in general.
If you are a nature manager or know someone who is, please apply here: Trails Application.
Wildergarden logo and "Reforest Marion County" graphic courtesy of Wildergarden.
Check out their website