The Center for Native Plants on U.S. 93 South will present its annual speaker series each Thursday evening in August. The first two presentations are free, and the second two are ticketed events that each cost $25. 

“We started doing the series so we can have something that's happening here in August and also because our mission is a conservation one -- education is important part of that.” said Caitlin Christopher, marketing manager and nursery staff member. “This is our sixth year doing it.” 

The first event on Aug. 7 is a talk by Kelsi Plante of Medicine Hive about gardening and foraging medicinal plants. Plante’s list of job titles includes nutrition coach, herbalist, yoga/meditation practitioner and teacher. 

“Our second event is a presentation by Mat Seidensticker,” Christopher said. “He's going to present about moths and he's going to do a light cloth demonstration about catching moths if you want to do citizen science for his project, which will be really fun.” 

Seidensticker is the founder and executive director of Northern Rockies Research and Educational Services and its flagship research program, the Montana Moth Project. He founded these organizations in 2019, to perform and support scientific research and monitor moths and insects in Montana. 

Kareen Erbe’s presentation on Aug. 21 is called “Re-wilding – Transforming your lawn into habitat.” Her business, Broken Ground, offers garden consultations, edible land designs and workshops. 

She said her mission as a permaculture educator is to “get as many people as possible building a resilient life that enables them to not only feed their families safe and healthy food but live their values and connect to their community.” 

Her discussion will center around replacing typical grass lawns with drought tolerant native plants. 

“We're doing a raffle with that one,” Christopher said. “We’re starting a new product here ... which will help people with their re-wilding project because it can be overwhelming.” 

The Center for Native Plants will begin offering re-wilding plant kits to help people transform their lawns. Each kit covers about 150 square feet, and everyone who buys a ticket to the event on Aug. 21 will be entered into the raffle. 

The final presentation in the series is an eco-printing workshop by Amy Gwartney of Earthen Rituals. Eco printing is a direct dying process that involves using fresh plant material and flowers to create colors and patterns on cloth. Attendants will make bandanas by bundling and steaming vegetation. 

THE MOTH TALK on Aug. 14 will be Seidensticker’s first presentation at the Center for Native Plants. He said one of the main points of his presentation is that moths are underrecognized for their work as pollinators. 

“They're really underappreciated, but very significant pollinators out there in these pollination systems and networks,” he said. “It's sort of the night shift. When the sun goes down, these moths are out there. 

"A lot of the research that’s coming out is showing that, in some cases, they're more efficient and even more significant pollinators than the bees,” he added. 

The Montana Moth Project has named over 2,000 species in the state, and there may be at least 2,000 more to be found, while there are only about 700 bee species in Montana. 

He said moths outnumber butterflies 10 to 1 in terms of diversity.  

“Let’s say there are 165,000 described butterflies and moths in the world,” he added. “About 140,000 of those are moths.” 

Seidensticker said moths are also excellent environmental indicators because their life cycle revolves around plants, they are important prey, and they are pollinators with great diversity. 

"You combine all those things, and it really makes them good ecologically indicators,” he said. “If you have a high diversity of moths in an area, it's going to indicate that you've got a really healthy and diverse plant system ... and more than likely, you're going to have a healthy bird population and bats and all sorts of things.” 

To attract moths and allow for better viewing at the event August 14, Seidensticker will set up a light sheet, a vertical white sheet hung from a rope on a couple poles, with a mercury vapor light and a black light.  

“I'm doing what I love to do, and I feel like, hopefully, we're contributing something useful and important,” he said.