For phlox’ sake, please keep your dogs leashed on the Ridge Trail atop Waterworks Hill — at least while Missoula’s fragile cushion plants are in bloom.

Bare trees sprouting green leaves, the sun warming and shining on the damp earth, and hundreds of flowers poking upward are ...

Gloved and armed with shears, women weave through thorny brambles, clipping and tossing their harvest into wheelbarrows.