Naturalists at the Museum

March, 2025
by Betty Struckhoff, Class of Fall 2024

Naturalists at the National Museum of Transportation

The National Museum of Transportation has been a St. Louis fixture since its founding in 1944. Recently, it was named by USA Today as one of the top five Best Open Air Museums in the U.S. for the second consecutive year.

It is also a magnet for Missouri Master Naturalist native landscaping volunteers. It all began in 2007 when Cindy Gilberg, a wonderful instructor and writer in the native landscaping community, designed eleven native plant beds for the museum property. Those plantings were the seed, literally and figuratively, for a host of native plants that now enhance the 40-acre property.

Sherri Turner and Barb Cerutti finish a new garden ring

From the median of the main driveway, to islands in the parking lot, to the rain garden below the parking lot, native landscapes greet visitors in every season. The very popular Pollinator Junction garden hosts bees and butterflies throughout the blooming season.

So what do Master Naturalist volunteers do here? We weed, we “edit,” we move seedlings, we cut back plants to encourage bushy growth, we whack bush honeysuckle, and we keep finding more places to grow relatively low maintenance natives. Volunteers have provided tours as they help host garden clubs, St. Louis Wild Ones gatherings, and the Master Naturalists’ annual picnic last June.

Tessa Wasserman has added special touches to the grounds, such as two purple martin hotels near the rain garden. The purple martins feast on dragonflies and other insects thanks to the native gardens and pond. There are also six bluebird houses which have all had successful nests.

Barb Cerutti cleaning purple martin gourds.

Kids enjoying the indoor Major Lee Berra Creation Station can spy birds and butterflies attracted to plantings and feeders just outside big windows, thanks to Tessa.

Master Naturalist Diana Miller oversees the maintenance of the rain garden, parking lot islands and other parts of the campus. She sometimes helps coordinate volunteer groups such as the Home Depot employees who eradicated bush honeysuckle and Callery pears around the pond. The cleared areas were seeded with seed collected around campus and from the St. Louis Wild Ones annual seed exchange.

Jack Barnett, Diana Miller and Tessa Wasserman with the Home Depot volunteers

Diana Miller, Jana Wade, Betty Struckhoff and April Anderson pose at the rain garden before a Wild Ones tour

An extensive area along Barrett Station Road is kept clear of invasives and allowed to fill in naturally. In the not so cultivated areas, we know where to find wild blackberries, persimmons and prickly pear cactus fruit.

Peggy Parr and another volunteer paint and poly garden additions

As a volunteer at the museum for many years, I can attest it’s not all a bed of roses. There have been hits and misses. Some things that didn’t go as planned:

The 2007 planting of prairie plants on a west facing hillside has proven difficult to manage. The original defined beds were constantly invaded by non-native warm season turfgrass (Bermuda grass). Some plants did not thrive, as we learned the water table was much higher than we imagined. This area has been allowed to grow in a naturalized manner rather than the more formal display that was originally intended.

A project funded in 2018 by St. Louis Wild Ones to demonstrate the use of native ground covers also highlights the importance of understanding the conditions. There is generally more shade and more moisture than we expected. Prairie Dropseed and Missouri Primrose simply refused to thrive. We were able to relocate these and find other plants better suited for the original site.

But there are plenty of bright spots:

The ever-helpful Scott Woodbury introduced us to using native annuals to get some showy flowers in the first year of a new bed, while the perennials were slowly getting established. His gift of seeds from Shaw Nature Reserve gave us showy Cleome in a parking lot island, with the bonus of hummingbird moths! Helen’s Flower is another native annual that re-seeds along a sidewalk.
Pollinator Junction is a wonder-full success. It is managed rather intensively as a demonstration of plants that support pollinators and includes educational materials for adults and kids.
The rain garden is a magical place. It is often filled with damsel and dragonflies, butterflies and birds. If we work into November, we may encounter a fairyland of frost in the morning or a small flock of bluebirds enjoying snacks.
In the ground cover demonstration area, a shade garden thrives. Another part of it is a very dry, part-shade area where Shaw Nature Reserve’s contribution of Pennsylvania Sedge is looking great.
The 2007 plantings have provided a bounty of native volunteers for the parking lot islands and other areas. These islands are relatively easy to maintain.
Seeds from throughout the museum have been part of the St. Louis Wild Ones annual seed exchange and cuttings have been table decorations for charity events.

Steve, Barb Cerutti and Sherri Turner planting shrubs from Forest ReLeaf

It is always rewarding when visitors show their appreciation for the plants. A favorite of mine came from a young mom with her son — “He loves to come here for the trains, and I love to come for the plants.”

Museum Director Terri McEachern has commented that she is delighted when visitors mention the native plantings in their online reviews. “It’s part of who we are” she notes, and she is lavish in her praise of the staff and volunteers who keep it all going.

Linda Cook and another volunteer clean and straighten botanical markers

Many of the planted areas are outside the museum’s pay wall and worth a quick visit if you happen to be in the neighborhood. But the price of admission is definitely worth it — for the marvelous artifacts as well as the pollinator garden and other plantings.

Master Naturalist volunteers at the museum include Sherri Turner, Barb Cerutti, Jack Barnett, Peggy Parr and Linda Cook. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Tessa (tesswass4@gmail.com) or Diana (diana.miller3m@gmail.com).

Naturalists at the National Museum of Transportation

The Bug Lab