We are delighted to announce that the Bedford Cultural Council approved funding for Plant Labels for the Rotary Native Pollination Preservation Garden! The goals of the garden are to increase native pollinator habitat, and to educate the public about the importance of native pollination systems. Labeling the plants in a clear, legible, water-proof way will help people learn what plants are being used in the garden. Plants will be labeled with their common name and their latin names. Hopefully this will encourage more people to grow their own native plants. There will be another update in the spring when the ground thaws enough to put the markers in the ground!
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.
We used a flag system to mark where each plant was to go, each plant species was identified by a different number, so when the plants grow in the spring, we will know whether it's a weed or the plant we want!
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 here.
The second one is will be held on Saturday, September 30th, where we will be planting what we grew in our Winter Sow project! Sign up for that here.
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.
We will be looking for people to help out with planting, maintenance and more. Let us know if you want to help!