Primary Goals
This project will establish a pollinator habitat that will focus on native host plants for butterflies and moths and native plants for specialist bees. This project will benefit the Chelsea community, seniors, and the children they garden with by providing a means of observing local pollinators and learning how to help support them in this period of decline. This pollinator project will also help to demonstrate the beauty of native plants and how easy they are to incorporate into existing landscapes and hopefully spark an interest in pollinators among all generations. Finally, this project will help to create a native habitat for our native pollinators and promote greater pollinator and plant biodiversity in the city. This garden will include plants often not considered when planting a pollinator garden, plants such as host plants that the native Lepidoptera need for reproduction and native plants that specialist bees visit.
Project Overview
The project planting was delayed because the specific plants required for the project were not available in the fall. However, we took this time to prep the planting location by mowing, smothering grass with cardboard, and then covering the cardboard with mulch. This covering was on during fall and throughout winter, thus, the ground was ready to plant in the spring. This spring we broke the planting up due to late germination of some of the plants. The first installment was on May 13th. A call was put out for volunteers to help participate in the planting of the garden. A decent number of people came out to help, including families of the local preschool that participate in programs in the garden during the summer months. June 11th we installed the landscape timbers, which really made the garden look nice. Then on May 14th the rest of the plants were put into place.
Successes and Challenges
Everything went fairly smoothly. Getting the landscape timbers was a great success because it made the bed look much more professional and will make maintenance much easier in the future. One challenge when working with the community is improper planting and the crushing of other plants while planting, but I think things will bounce back. Another challenge is mint that was planted there a while ago, it will be a bit problematic for a while.
Future Maintenance & Use
There are people regularly at the garden maintaining it. Someone will also be there to maintain, help weed, and upkeep the space. Currently we are planning on creating a plant map with QR codes for when the plants get bigger, this way people can learn more about what the plants are and how they will benefit the local ecosystem.