Friday morning (July 28th) a band of weed warriors took to the pollinator garden to clean up the area and to remove any plants that were growing where they weren't supposed to be. Weeding is pretty straightforward as we have flags placed wherever a plant is supposed to be. This handy method allowed even the most novice gardeners to feel confident in what they were doing!
We did notice a few plants that had been nibbled (a lot) by animals, most likely deer and we will probably have to figure out a way to protect them in future years when they start growing. The entire clean-up took just over 30 minutes. A big thank you to our weeders - Judi, Ralph, Joe, Christine P, Tom, and Paula.
Check out the completed job!
Despite the rain, we held a successful Rotary Day of Service on Saturday (May 18th) at our native pollinator preservation garden in Page Field. The hardy group that came out helped weed (and there were lots!) and mulch the area. 
Finally, the fruits of our winter sow made it into the ground. We first spent some time weeding the area we had prepared last fall. Then, on 9/30, we set up a grid using wood, inspired by a trip to the Chelmsford Pollination Preservation Garden. Each plant species was planted in a 3'x3' square, although we expanded the area for some plants so we could have even more - those plants were in 3'x6' rectangles. 
Join us as we work on our Native Pollination Preservation Garden! There will be two work days in September. The first one will be weeding around the area, and preparing to plant. It will be on Friday, September 17th at 1pm. This was rescheduled due to an impending storm! Sign up to help out 
On February 25th, 16 of us gathered in Bob Cassidy's garage fr a winter sow for our Pollinator Garden. Great! So what is a winter sow anyway? Here is what Webster has to say about it. Winter sowing is an outdoor method of starting seeds and it requires plastic containers like milk or juice cartons), soil, seeds and Mother Nature. By growing your own plants from seeds, you can several hundreds of dollars each each year. 
Our first order of business was to prepare the garden bed. The DPW mowed the area close to the ground and provided wood chips for our use. We had planned on starting work on Saturday, but the remnants of Hurricane Ian pushed our work into Monday afternoon. We smothered the entire area with cardboard and covered the cardboard with woodchips. This is a way of killing weeds without using chemicals. The cardboard will remain on the ground until next fall (or towards the end of the summer) in order to effectively kill weeds. 
To save native pollinators, we must restore pollination systems and rebuild functionally diverse native habitat. Pollination Ecologist and Conservation Biologist Robert Gegear, Ph.D. has been studying the ecology, evolution and conservation of pollination systems native to eastern North America for over 25 years. An Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth as well as Founder and Director of the New England Beecology Project, Dr Gegear has compiled a list research-based native plants to support native-pollinators at risk..png)
