FIELD TRIP IS FULL. Co-sponsored by Minnesota School of Botanical Art and Minnesota Native Plant Society.

Botanical Artists: Explore the morphology of native plants under various growing conditions in several habitats; sketching in the field. Develop your palette of color samples, learn proper methods of plant collection and photography to assure realistic depictions.

Plant lovers: Explore new locations of fens, prairies, and rock outcrops. Shalom Hill Farm lies in the center of a circle of at least 15 potential destinations to be selected depending on the conditions of the season. These include upland prairies, rock outcrops, “waterfalls,” mesic prairies, and wetland complexes with calcareous fens. Two prime publicly owned forests are a little over an hour away.

Come explore the north unit of Hastings Sand Coulee SNA just outside the city of Hastings in Dakota County. The SNA protects high quality native dry sand-gravel prairie, mesic prairie, oak woodland and oak forest in an area otherwise dominated by agricultural land use and expanding housing developments.