Lester Public Library of Rome 1157 Rome Center Dr. Nekoosa

The Rome-area MGVs work with recently retired MGVs to maintain the garden areas at the Lester Public Library of Rome. These areas include a butterfly garden, prairie gardens filled with native plants, a rain garden, and many other landscaped areas. We also maintain an herb garden for library patrons to use and a children’s garden filled with vegetables for patrons to harvest. Recent projects included placing pavers to form a walkway to encourage visitors to visit our new patio area and explore the areas behind the library. We also started setting out composting bins near the building to generate interest in composting, and displayed straw-bale gardening in the children’s garden.

In 2022, we worked together to form a Rome Area Garden Club open to all members of the public. We offer monthly garden chats that cover a wide variety of topics. Topics this year ranged from tree planting, composting and vermiculture, creating a wildlife oasis in one’s own yard to collecting seeds from native plants. We meet monthly from March to October, and attendees participate fully in discussions and activities. 

We enjoy welcoming new gardeners to join us and are happy to answer any questions about our project!

This prairie garden is located behind the library, and it’s been fascinating to watch its transition throughout the course of the summer and over the span of the past few years.

We have transitioned two of our larger planting beds into prairie gardens. In addition to being lower maintenance, they are pollinator friendly, drought tolerant and deer resistant. Our prairie gardens include native plants, such as rudbeckia, liatris, Joe Pye weed, false indigo, cup plant, ox-eye daisies, brown-eyed Susans, asters, a wide variety of native grasses and many other plants.

Our fenced-in children’s garden is used for planting vegetables. New this year was a straw-bale gardening display. The cherry tomatoes grown in the straw bales were extra sweet-tasting! At the end of the growing season, we added the straw bales to our compost pile.

The butterfly garden is always filled with bees and butterflies! We use a mix of perennials and annuals to attract pollinators from early in the spring to late in the fall. Early bloomers include hyacinths and daffodils, while the irises, day lilies, liatris, rudbeckia, verbena and daisies bloom later in the spring through much of the summer. Late-blooming perennials include asters, brown-eyed Susans and goldenrod.

The elevated herb garden was made by stacking the boards as shown in the photo to allow easier access for planting and weeding the herbs, along with snipping the herbs as needed. This design also allows gardeners to grow a variety of herbs in a small space. A mailbox on the back side of the herb garden holds a pair of scissors for snipping herbs, along with information sheets on how to use herbs.

Included in the raised garden bed are chard, peppers, radishes, spinach, and different types of lettuce. The covering over the bed was made by bending underground sprinkler hoses a size smaller than the PVC pipe into which they’ll be inserted. The hoses are then covered with bird netting to protect the plants from wildlife damage.