Eureka Springs resident Marty Falkenstien is proof that retirement doesn’t mean the end of making the world a better place. You just keep on doing the work you love. In fact, her post-work “work” has just garnered her another award in the field of interpretive gardening.
Former National Park Ranger cultural interpreter and current Master Naturalist, Falkenstien was raised in Kansas, attended the University of Kansas, and then moved to Marin County in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1970s. There she became a cultural interpretive National Park Ranger at Point Reyes National Seashore where she worked with Coast Miwok and Kashaya Pomo people, indigenous to Marin and Sonoma counties, respectively.
Falkenstien became engaged by and immersed in their histories, stories, cultural practices, families and contemporary challenges.
“Most of all they imprinted on me their love, connection, and respect for all things of the Earth, seeing everything as a relative,” Falkenstien recounted. “I was later asked to spend a summer working with and interpreting the Modoc Nation at Lava Beds National Monument, and these cultures have so enriched and influenced my life.”
As a cultural interpreter, Falkenstien sought the teachers of the old ways, learning things like brain-tanning deer hides, basketry, plants and their uses, and more.
In turn, she taught primitive skills and led interpretive programs with Coast Miwok and Kashaya Pomo Park rangers and teachers. She even constructed a life-sized pre-contact Coast Miwok town, called Kule Loklo (Bear Valley), at Point Reyes National Seashore, which can be visited today via a hiking trail.
“Plants and natural building led me to permaculture, gardening and foraging,” Falkenstien said. “I installed a native plants garden at Point Reyes and at the Marin Museum of the American Indian with ethnographic signage depicting how these plants were and are used by indigenous peoples.”
After retirement, she moved to Eureka Springs, and six years ago bought an acre of land five miles out of town from a dear friend, and built a tiny house.
“I was committed to not bringing non-native plants into my yard, a cleared forested area surrounding my house,” Falkenstien said. “Nest was built, so time to explore and get to know the [local native] plants. Several years ago, I had learned about some of the native plants from an interpretive garden at the Chinquapin Nature Center at Roaring River State Park outside Cassville, Missouri, so I returned there but found completely neglected garden beds mostly consumed by river oats.”
Falkenstien inquired at the Nature Center and discovered there had been no one to maintain the interpretive garden: no staff, no volunteers, no interest. So, she signed up as a volunteer for the Missouri Park system in 2022 and swung a mattock for two seasons, digging the river oats root system out from the beds. Then she discovered there weren’t, and still aren’t, funds for plants or labor.
“Discouraged, but not defeated, I decided to explore the park and identify what plants I knew and where they were so I could transplant a few in the spring,” she said. “The best part of this garden story is that by spring of 2023, with the beds weeded and mulched, native plants started popping up everywhere – from spring ephemerals to late season composites!”
And then, much to her surprise, the Association of Missouri Interpreters awarded her, out of the state’s 93 parks and historical sites, the 2023 Outstanding Interpretive Volunteer award.
Last year, after reading Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy and doing research, Falkenstien focused the interpretive garden with native plants to attract pollinators: beetles, butterflies, bees, moths, flies, wasps, ants, bats and hummingbirds. Pollinators are vital because they feed the entire planet by transferring pollen, allowing plants to produce viable seeds.
Most of the foods we eat exist due to a pollinator; even animals raised for meat eat plants that were pollinated. According to Falkenstien, we have lost 70% of our pollinators in the last 30 years and the planet is in danger of hunger if we continue the same landscaping practices we began 50 years ago, such as mowing huge acreage, planting non-native alien plants that local pollinators do not recognize, using pesticides, raking leaves, and removing native larvae host plants. Even our bird populations have noticeably declined without pollinator larvae to feed their young.
“I have been working nearly every week for three years in this garden and have now, in 2025, identified over 70 different native plants, all from seeds just waiting to pop in the beds when there was room,” Falkenstien said. “This is testimony to the tenacity of our seed relatives! Native plants now have identification tags with common and botanical names to help visitors learn. Better signage and an interpretive panel are in the works, and last year, with graphic help from naturalist Anna Skalicky, we produced a colorful brochure explaining the importance of pollinators. Inside, the brochure lists thirty colorful native plants for seasonal year-long blooms to attract pollinators.”
That work has been recognized. A few weeks ago, Falkenstien was notified by Laura Hendrickson, Director of Missouri State Parks, that she is being awarded for the first half of 2025, the Volunteer Masterpiece Award. Award presentation and details are in the making.
“I have volunteered at RRSP for the last three years because I love our planet and I want to contribute all that I can to protect what diversity we have left,” Falkenstien said. “It begins with education and inspiration, so I added to my knowledge by graduating as a Master Naturalist in the Northwest Arkansas chapter last spring. I do this all for love. The reward is great people, lots of pollinators, and hope.
Scheduled volunteer days at the RRSP garden have ended for this season. However, if you want to help, play or learn, please call the Nature Center and leave your contact info so Falkenstien can respond. (417) 847-3742.