Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum Monarch Garden
Mansfield, MO
Photos: Top and bottom right by Susan Essman
Bottom left and center by Ronda Burnett
Size: 4,500 square feet
Year established: 2016
Year inducted: 2025
Category: Professionally managed with volunteer assistance
Entrance Fee: Free (note, there is a fee to enter the Museum)
Description: Susan Essman (volunteer and former board member at the Museum) worked with
Missouri Department of Conservation’s Community Conservation Planner Ronda Burnett to install the museum’s butterfly habitat area. Planted on sloping terrain, the native plant installation helps the museum achieve several goals: it honors Wilder’s love of nature, helps keep stormwater out of a nearby creek, and sustains pollinators. The design includes plant species that bloom in a range of colors and at different times, to create a succession of blooms from April through October, and also grasses to provide texture and structure.
A paid gardener and two volunteers regularly weed the garden of invasives, place name plates, and move plants. Stewards control most weeds by pulling, with the exception of sericea lespedeza, which is cut at the base followed by weed killer applied with a dauber. In early spring the whole garden is mowed once.
What Makes this Garden Excellent:
This beautiful butterfly garden with all natives in front of the barn-themed Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum emulates the prairie that the Wilders came through to get to Missouri. It is a stop on the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail.
The Museum is open to the public and receives on average 30,000 visitors a year, who ask lots of questions about the garden. It is a great opportunity for learning about natives, decline of monarchs and other butterflies, and the overall importance of utilizing natives in landscaping.
Ten Great Native Plants to See Here:
Andropogon ternarius (splitbeard bluestem)
Andropogon virginicus (broomsedge)
Asclepias purpurascens (purple milkweed)
Coreopsis palmata (prairie coreopsis)
Dalea candida (white prairie clover)
Liatris aspera (rough blazing star)
Rudbeckia missouriensis (Missouri coneflower)
Solidago nemoralis (gray goldenrod)
Symphyotrichum leave (smooth aster)
Veronicastrum virginicum (Culver’s root)
Accessibility: Walkways are ADA accessible. Accessible parking spaces are available at the Museum building.
A view of the garden just after planting.
Location:
3060 Highway A
Mansfield, MO 65704-8104
Coordinates:
37° 5′ 57.3324” N 92° 34′ 0.3252” W
37.099259, -92.566757
See more about the garden on page 8 of the September 2018 Missouri Conservationist.
Contact Nicholas Inman, Director of Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home & Museum, at 417-924-3626.