Part I
After searching my community, I finally found a school that would allow me access to land for the gardens and to students to educate. The young people are, after all, the guardians of tomorrow. Our Redeemer’s Principal, Mrs. Ladiena Brush, was very open to the idea. As it turns out, she and her entire family have a keen interest in the way living things interact; flowers and honeybees were no exception! She ran my proposal through the church council and board of education and it was agreed that I could create the pollinator gardens with the students in the school, and that when I finished the project, I would remove them. I readily agreed. They allowed me 1100 square feet of land to work with. So began the “Bee Friendly Project”.
Part II – Designing and Building a Pollinator Garden
When I initially began researching pollinator gardens, there really wasn’t a lot available on the internet. I decided that we would need to do a very long bed at some distance from the buildings which would be a weeded “wildscape” for the bees, and two smaller beds near the educational buildings for student observation. I had a great deal of help for the labor involved – Daniel, Laura, Wesley, Jessica, Aaron, Gene, Vickie, and Elvis all tilled, shoveled, built beds, removed grass, and helped with just about anything that needed to be done.
1. The long bed we simply tilled, and removed the grass. It had no wind break.
2. The observation beds were raised, fertile soil was brought in, and another building stood as the wind break.
By the way, removing grass is not an easy job, tilled or otherwise.
After consulting with JoAnne Jenkins, who has many years experience as a Master Gardener, I ordered seeds online which were appropriate for this area, and for honeybees. I believe the seeds covered twenty two or so different kinds of wildflowers. Wildflowers are by nature easy to take care of, requiring little or no maintenance, other than occasional weeding. I marked off the areas in ten foot sections and filled zip-locks with seeds. The students added the sand, shook their bags, and then began to distribute the seeds in their sections of the soon to be “gardens”. They stomped them in and we left. Waiting through the winter and spring was the hardest part.
Part III – Gardens in Bloom - expanding
Severe thunderstorms gave me reason to go check the beds, and the winter was much colder than usual. In fact, some of the plants had begun to break soil when we were hit with another two hard freezes. Ms. Jenkins told me not to worry. And I didn’t, really, until the Principal called to say that the lawn man had cut down the long bed. The fence marking it off was only half completed. We rushed over and finished the fence. Ms. Jenkins said they would probably be fine due to the fact they were small plants to begin with. We lightly reseeded just in case.
When the plants first began to emerge, I could not tell weed from wildflower. I had no choice but to let it all grow. For weeks, I looked doubtfully at the beds, wondering if wildflowers would grow, or if I simply had an unmanageable mess on my hands. It looked scrubby and short, weedy. I really lost my enthusiasm a bit for this end of the project. I began working on lesson plans to teach various age groups about bees.
Then one day, the Principal called to say the gardens were beginning to bloom. I arrived to see a few blooms here and there. A week later, both observation beds looked amazing! There was color everywhere – like boxes of crayons had exploded; the colors hung in the air. Soon, some of the flowers were topping out at five feet! There were so many comments from everyone who saw them – they brought joy to the heart. But what about the bees?
Initially the bees seemed to be more content with the sweet clover that covered the ground outside the beds. They did eventually find the flowers, however, and they stuffed their leg sacks full of pollen! Their hairy little bodies were covered in pollen!
At this point, I considered the gardens a success! We had created a foraging habitat and the bees seemed happy.
The long bed bloomed a little later than the observation beds. Having no wind break, no raised bed, no soil amendments, and less sun took a toll on the long bed. Every wildflower species we planted did bloom, but not as densely as the observation beds; it was sparser. This may have been due to the fact that there was no wind break, or perhaps because the grass had grown back, or maybe it just didn’t get the same amount of sun…perhaps the soil content had something to do with it, or a combination of all of these factors.
Part IV – Teaching People about Bees
There really wasn’t a lot to do at this point, so I worked creating a curriculum and ordered teaching supplies online. I did a lot of preparation in order to teach various age groups. I also prepared materials for teaching area youth groups. Their ages ran from five to sixteen, and I quickly found that I needed a way to simplify things for the youngest girls. I took the life-cycle and wrote and illustrated a children’s picture book for them. There are some good books available, like The Magic School Bus, but it was just too much to digest in an afternoon for the younger ones. My book worked out well, and the girls enjoyed it.
I gave my lessons to the students at the school outdoors near the observation beds and we were not alone – bees were busy foraging all through the flowers behind us. We covered basic plant anatomy, the life cycle of the honey bee; we discussed the problems that honey bees face today as well as chemical use and misuse. I showed them fresh honeycomb and posters of bees done with incredible photography. They watched a film called the “Silence of the Bees”, and learned a little about other pollinators.
For the other youth groups, I used the posters and the book I’d made for young audiences. I also trained a group of assistants – Simone, Irmalinda, Ashlie, Dominesha, Tamea, and Kiara. It can take many helping hands when working with young people! We also planted small pollinator gardens that they could take home and replant (vanEnglesdorp’s meadows in a pot). I hoped to spread the pollinator garden idea across our area of town. It was Dennis vanEnglesdorp who said, “Make meadows not lawns”. (check out his TED discussion on Bees at http://www.ted.com/talks/dennis_vanengelsdorp_a_plea_for_bees.html
he talks of a nature deficit disorder which is interesting…) All in all, the girls and the students found it very entertaining, and they learned a lot about bees that they didn’t know. More importantly, they learned that they have the ability to help change the situation, to create healthier environments for pollinators.
Part V – Benefits of the Pollinator Garden
The gardens brought the students outside. It gave them a connection with nature. They could say, “I planted that!” and see the interaction of the pollinators with the plants, with a better understanding of how important they are to each other.
The principal said the students enjoyed going out each day to identify the newest blooming wildflowers. I was so pleased when the Principal decided to make the pollinator gardens an ongoing project at the school. I designed a walkway to go around the observation beds made of landscaping timbers and stones with sand. The students made mosaic stones to accent the walkway. This gives the whole thing a little more permanence. It looks nice, and the students have a place to walk to view the flowers, study the pollinators, etc., and they have a certain ownership when it comes to the entire project.
