Future STEM Engineers and Architects at Barretts Elementary School in the Parkway School District built a Marshmallow Museum to protect our bright yellow engines! The National Museum of Transportation is an avid supporter of STEM endeavors – watch for them at our museum.
For inquiries regarding our STEM program, please contact Carrie Bernard at 314.965.6885, ext. 5.
Pollinator Junction
Despite the dreary weather, a soon coming “find” of the next season is a twiggy bouquet of acid yellow flowers on a youthful specimen of Cornelian Cherry (Cornus mas), tucked up against the porch at Barrett Station at The National Museum of Transportation.
A period of discovery in a new pocket of landscape is glorious. It is like no other part of horticulture as it is when your relationship with a site literally and figuratively starts to grow. I can only compare it to falling in love!
This preseason bloomer is likely to continue carrying on well into Spring and she looks comfortable despite the chill and a possible silly Easter snow shower. She will look warm with her yellow flowers showing. It is like she has her own personal sunshine!
I do think she is situated now a little close to the railing, so I am guessing she’s been in place for 10-15 years or more. That is still young for a Cornus mas as they are known to live 50-100 years!
This dogwood relative can eventually grow into a small, 20- to 25-foot-high tree or large shrub. (I wonder if the planter knew that and intended to limb her up along the way or if the porch came later–see…more to ponder and to love!
She can thrive if in well-drained soil situation and look equally lovely as a specimen plant, in masses, near a patio, or even as a hedge.
If you are traveling soon, take Owney the Dog with you! Stop by the National Museum of Transportation’s Orthwein Center Welcome Desk for an Owney to take on your trip, or print Owney from this link. Snap photos with Owney and share them at our Facebook page, on Google, TripAdvisor, etc., or email your photo to us at [email protected], so we know where all Owney has been.
As a little bit of history, Owney, was a Border terrier- like dog adopted as the first unofficial postal mascot by the Albany, New York, post office about 1888. The Albany mail professionals recommended the dog to their Railway Mail Service colleagues, and he became a nationwide mascot for nine years. He traveled throughout the 48 contiguous United States and voyaged around the world traveling over 140,000 miles in his lifetime as a mascot of the Railway Post Office and the United States Postal Service. He is best known for being the subject of commemorative activities, including a 2011 U.S. postage stamp.
St. Louis’s Handlan-Buck Manufacturing Company was founded in 1856. For over 120 years, they were one of the nation’s leading suppliers of railroad lamps and lanterns. Handlan family member, Thomas McTague, recently donated digital copies of treasured photos from the company. Below is one of the images of Handlan workers assembling signal lamps captured in 1902.
The generosity of the public provides many of the artifacts used by the museum to create and continually enhance its many exhibits. If you would like to discuss donating an item(s) to the museum, please contact the Curator at (314) 821-1180, Monday through Friday between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., or by email at [email protected].
The elaborate Bobby Darin “Dream Car” owned by the Museum of Transportation is a one-of-a-kind custom car. Designed by Detroit clothing designer Andy Di Dia in 1953, it was completed in 1960. This vehicle features several automotive innovations and has 30 coats of translucent pearl paint, with crushed diamond dust in it for sparkle. See Di Dia Dream Car for more tidbits.
By MaryAnn Fink / LIFE Exhibit Curator
The mind’s eye trickery I deal with is confusing to me even still in my silver years.
What I see at the pollinary park at the National Museum of Transportation is so beyond this immature reality.
I thought after talking to my friend April perhaps trying to share a peek into my vision might “bee” a way to share my view of the annuals. I hope to fill the pollinator pantry’s gaps with nectar and pollen and even some butterfly baby food.
This is what I see as its possible future: “Bee”-cause the tall majestic Cannas offer a wind buffer and hummingbird nectar, I have congregated groupings of the new Tropicana Gold and the dark beauty, the original Tropicanna. Their beautifully striated leaves are not typically deer candy. They also have the slight potenial to return next year if its a mild enough winter ( so very cost effective potential) . Cannas can “bee”come a lovely and subtle color echo for the other neighboring annuals featured in the garden as well!
“To Leave or Not to Leave” (the Fallen Leaves), That is the Question!
Pollinator Junction/ Life Exhibit
‘Tis it nobler in the mind… to blow away the foliage debris in the fall or suffer the consequence of a messy appearance?
This is the question that may haunt some homeowners who have a choice in the way they approach their landscape upkeep at the end of the season.
Many end up straddling the “eco-friendly” fence by keeping the front more traditionally manicured and the back yard managed in a more relaxed manner by allowing leaves in the garden but off the lawn.
Some landscape arrangements leave few other options. Landscape fabric and decorative rocks create an unforgiving barrier that disallows any organic matter to re-enter the soil. Landscape fabric and rock topdressing cause damage. Leaves become homeless, huddled in crunchy and eventually mucky masses in random places in invisible wind traps in front of shrubs. The brown clumps dirty the decorative rocks, cover landscape lighting and become weed seed traps and weed starter gardens.
Are there other tidy front yard options? In my experience, yes but initially changing to them are not easy or inexpensive. All changes seem to require lengthy dialogue, but be assured a mature landscape adds to home value. To the end that common sense prevails, it becomes much easier to make changes that are definitely more eco-friendly!
And in the backyard, do I recommend an “abandoned look”? A leaf fest? Or are clippers and rakes even allowed?
No, yes,yes! Leaves have their place, preferable where they fall, but sometimes that’s not practical. But do NOT chop, slice and dice or mangle and sputter them!
Instead, gently rake them off paths and off the shoulders of shrubs. Initially it’s also best to brush them off the waning stems and crowns of nearly retired perennials too. Tuck your garden to bed by using leaves as a light eco-blanket thinly spread between plants and shrubs creating a natural air buffer. This allows a transition temperature zone between the normal seasonal dropping air temperature and the more stable ground temperature making it easier for many plants to survive our fickle winter fluctuations.
Excess leaves can be raked into multiple small lose piles and left in less noticeable locations. Avoid piled leaves as they tend to store moisture and heat. Eventually they will become grand compost but hurrying the process will kill off beneficial insects, their eggs and our precious butterfly cocoons!
Comment by George T Koprivica:
Interesting! We have clay soil. Each Fall, I bag all leaves, lay them out in a long row and run a mower over them several times until they resemble a coarse powder. I suck them up in my mower bag, lay them to rot by our back fence over winter. In the Spring, I incorporate the rotted leaves with the clay soil and gypsum and fertilizer using a roto tiller to make gardens. Before, we had no worms – now we have healthy night crawlers that digest the leaves and enrich and aerate the soil. Rotting fruit – peaches, apples, etc. in trenches over winter is a great way to feed worms and enrich the soil. Do I pay $1.00 a bag for the trash man to haul them away or spend a little effort and recycle? We put gardens on all sides of our house at the foundation. The soil settled over the years and channeled water close to the house. Now, gardens are much higher than the lawn, diverting water away. Also, any water that overflows gutters waters irises, day lilies, hostas, lambia, ferns, or front landscaped gardens. No more water in our sump pump! Leaves are a valuable asset to enrich poor soil.
Volunteers were really busy during a workday Sunday, November 17th, 2019! We had 15 volunteers plant over 500 daffodil bulbs around the blue car in the circle drive, and took out invasive bush honeysuckle on the hill behind the mine shovel. They worked extremely hard from 10 am – noon and thoroughly enjoyed the garden tour and mini train ride thanks to the engineers!
The National Museum of Transportation is pleased to announce the three winners of our September 21, 2019, Plein Air Art Event. Best in Show was Marty Coulter’s painting of our Bobby Darin Di Dia “Dream Car” (see featured photo). Marty is from Washington MO. Henryk Ptasiewicz of The Koken Art Factory in St. Louis MO placed second. Konstantin Kublanov of Ballwin MO placed third. Congratulations to our winners and thanks to all those who participated!
