CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — Residents spent part of their Sunday getting a little dirty.
After the Christmas parade, the Carl Junction Cultivators Garden Club and Liberty Utilities-Empire District held a “Seed Stomp” for the Mammoth Prairie Project across the street from the city’s Public Works Department.
Participants could throw seed balls at targets, stomp seeds into the Earth, or learn about the migration of monarch butterflies.
The project was proposed to Carl Junction City Council by Liberty Utilities-Empire District in August as a part of their “Power to the Pollinators” campaign and is set to be a spot for native plant life to grow.
Jason Grossman, Manager of Transmission and Distribution Vegetation, says, “Power to the Pollinators is a program where we encourage property owners, and we work with cities to promote pollinator habitat, and just put in some flowers and make the city beautiful and help communities out.”
Kim Bartlett, Co-Chair of the Carl Junction Cultivators Garden Club’s Wildflower Committee, adds, “With seed balls, the reason we make those instead of just spreading the seeds on the ground is two fold. It prevents the birds from eating the seed right away, and it also puts these seeds in a mud and clay case that will help them germinate in the spring.”
The site was chosen to be called “Mammoth Prairie” in recognition of a fossil of the animal found near the park in the late 1800s.