Vicki Joy Bonk did an amazing job teaching the neighborhood about gardening. We learned all about native plants and how to best plant them for the season. She discussed soft landings and the importance of planting particular plants under nearby trees. So who is she? We're glad you asked.
Vicki Joy Bonk, is a Nokomis East resident who has voluntarily developed and stewarded
neighborhood projects that connect people with nature. The journey began in 1995 with
community projects envisioned by the NENA environmental task force and endorsed by the neighborhood. One NENA & Mpls Park Board project, that Vicki shepherded, was the Nokomis Naturescape, a 4-acre native planting Installed at Lake Nokomis in 1998. She has been the volunteer Naturescape gardening coordinator from the beginning to this day.
To engage the public in the benefits of native plant habitat, she enlisted the beloved monarch butterfly as an ambassador, and created the Grow Monarch Habitat Workshops. This popular endeavor led to the Minneapolis Monarch Festival and then the Monarch Mile 50th street boulevard plantings.
Vicki is on the board of Wild Ones Twin Cities and Bush Lake Izaak Walton League, and is a NENA Environmental Committee member. She finds partnering with these volunteer-led organizations, an education, an opportunity to do good and a great way to be among friends.
A Minneapolis College of Art and Design graduate, Vicki’s art now centers on the charm of native plant ways, the lively diversity of the creatures they invite, and her skills are used to advocate for what she deeply loves and appreciates. She realizes now more than ever, nature needs many, many voices to protect and restore life, on our shared, one-and-only, glorious, blue & green planet.
Her partner, Richard Bonk, shares enthusiasm for art and nature. He will be working at Agrarian, a couple days a week, as a native plants specialist.