40 South News (http://40southnews.com/author/jean-ponzi/)
Maplewood summer walkers have been hailed by an installation in the Stone Spiral Gallery, 2506 Sutton Boulevard. “Wood you? Can you? Stick with me?” salutes passers-by in a tableau of tables fashioned from Bush Honeysuckle, one of our region’s most invasive plant species, and a cadre of wooden folks, barely noticeable to life-sized, with their honeysuckle stick dog.
The Healthy Planet, “St. Louis’ Magazine of Green & Healthy Living,” has joined The Gateway Gardener on the free pick-up table just inside the door of Scheidt True Value Hardware. Gnomes on July edition’s cover hale from the editor’s garden. Now in its 24th year, The Healthy Planet spun from the orbit of the Webster-Kirkwood Times, when Times co-founder J.B. Lester was looking to start another publication. Lester says he’s confident that his chosen editing/publishing focus on Health, Wellness and The Environment will never go out of style.
Stone Spiral [2500 Sutton Blvd, Maplewood] is serving walkup beverage orders, mornings 9 a.m. to noon. Latte, mocha, tea and more at the safe and healthy distance. CASH ONLY PLEASE. PLUS: heirloom veg and herb plant seedlings have returned to the Stone Spiral patio! Grown with love and clean hands (under lights in the Spiral basement, hearing scratchy classical from a vintage clock radio), from Baker Creek and Botanical Interest USDA Organic seeds.
It was the last plant everywhere to lose its leaves, you’ll see it leaf out first in earliest spring. It crowds out our native bushes and young trees, swallowing up habitat for birds and pollinators. Bush Honeysuckle might be your privacy hedge, but it’s the worst privacy option, in yards or parks or alongs streams and roadways. What to do with such a plant invader? Woodworker Dale Dufer is making tables with it – and getting others to think creatively about this serious landscape problem in his “Think About Tables” workshops.