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Visit our public garden in Rockport at . < Back Avena Botanicals Healing Gardens 219 Mill St, Rockport, ME 04856, USA Avena Botanicsls Healing Gardens are focused on organically growing medicinal herbs for Avena's apothecary and a diversity of flowers for Ruby-thtoated hummingbirds, monarchs and native bees. We offer classes through our non-profit leatning center called the Herbal Hummingbird Hub. Please visit website for dates garden is open to public. We are open only at specific times. www.herbalhummingbirdhub.org Willows, apples, Trumpet creeper, flowering quince, spotted jewelweed, Joe-pye weed, Common milkweed, Butterfly weed, Blazing Star, Greek Mullein, Black Cohosh, red and purple bee balm, figwort, red columbine, true Solomon’s seal, Mexican sunflower, Hummingbird sage. Garden open for specific classes and events, not all the time

Anita < Back 82 Shore Road I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy. St. Ann's Church - perennial geranium, nepeta, oenothera, echinacea (purple coneflower), nasturtium, cut leaf coneflower (rudbeckia laciniata), black eyed susan (rudbeckia hart), zinnia, cleome, salvia, violets, oak trees, andromeda, linden (tree), oak, viburnum Hobblebush, white mulberry, sumac

Newtown Pollinator Pathway The Newtown Pollinator Pathway is sponsored by Protect Our Pollinators. We are a non-profit group that seeks to increase awareness of threaten pollinator species, encourage planting of native plants, encourage the elimination of harmful pesticides and provide safer alternatives. The Pollinator Pathway initiative is supported by the Newtown Forest Association, Newtown Conservation Commission, Newtown Environmental Action Team, The Garden Club of Newtown, Newtown Horticulture Club, Town & Country Garden Club, and the community of Newtown. Our goal is to create a corridor of contiguous pollinator-friendly properties in Newtown that includes public open spaces and adjacent private ones belonging to residents. All town residents should consider taking part in the Pollinator Pathway initiative because bees and butterflies need plenty of floral resources that provide nutrient-rich pollen and nectar. JOIN THE PATHWAY Protect Our Pollinators is proud to be leading the effort to establish a Pollinator Pathway in Newtown. We thank all of the organizations who are supporting this important initiative. For more information on the Newtown Pollinator Kickoff event: Visit on the Web: www.propollinators.org On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/protectourpollinators Email: propollinators@gmail.com For more information on native pollinators: Native Pollinators For information on where to purchase Native Plants: Purchase Ways that you can help: Get Involved

Rethink your Lawn Lawncare Calendar No Mow May Lawn to Meadow Rethink Your Lawn How? Mow less frequently—only every 2-3 weeks "Join the No Mow May movement (check your town blight ordinance about meadow restrictions)” Reduce the size by adding shrubs, trees or a pollinator garden or clover! Let part of your yard go natural. Wild flowers will likely appear. Create a mini-meadow Avoid Pesticides Test your soil to see what, if any, fertilizer you need, and go organic Leave the leaves Go Electric! Allow for some dirt patches Provide a fresh water source Why are Lawns Causing a Problem? They provide little to no habitat They add fertilizers and toxins from 70 million pounds of pesticides a year to wetlands, streams and rivers & the Sound Their root systems are too shallow to effectively filter stormwater runoff Homeowners typically use 10 times the amount of pesticides and fertilizers per acre on their lawns than farmers do on crops Lawns Use Tons of Water In lower Fairfield County, 40% of water is used outdoors, and in the summer that number jumps to 70%, according to Aquarion Water Company Nationally, lawns suck up 9 billion gallons of water per day, according to the EPA Loss of Plant Diversity: America's biggest crop is not what you think! Over 40 million acres of land in the continental US has some form of lawn on it. --Business Insider, February 19, 20 LEARN MORE Lawn to Meadow Convert your Lawn to a Meadow Converting some or all of your lawn to woods or meadow creates a natural habitat for pollinators by adding diversity and interest to your backyard. In addition, it reduces the time you spend mowing and avoids the problems listed above. A diverse array of native trees, shrubs, perennial flowers, and warm season grasses are much better than turf grass for keeping soil and nutrients in place. The first step to a lawn becoming a meadow is to stop the weekly mowing. Next you should pay attention to what plants are already there and remove any problem invasive species. If you already have bare patches between the grass (common in dry or shady lawns), you can immediately start planting small plants or scratch in some seeds, ideally in early spring or fall. Mow a meandering path through the area to invite you out in the space once the grass and other plants grow taller. Lawn grasses can also be killed without herbicides using a technique called soil solarization. The entire lawn is covered with black plastic for 3 months – the heat kills the grass. You will then have a weed free area where you can rake and sow seeds or plant small plants in the dead turf. Sheet mulching is another effective technique. Read more about these methods in the Primer for the ecological gardener. To learn more about how to convert your lawn to a meadow, please check out the following links: How to Create a Meadow Garden Creating Wildflower Meadows From Scratch Or By Simply Changing Mowing Regimes How to turn your lawn into a garden Lawncare Calendar Download Calendar Take the NO MOW MAY Challenge! Let your green lawn turn into a riot of color with buttercups, clover, dandelions and daisies that will offer much-needed food for our beleaguered bees and butterflies who are hungry after a long winter. Take the No Mow May Challenge! That’s right—Do Nothing! Leave your mower in the garage until June. Every flower counts when it comes to providing a meal for pollinators, so it makes sense that cutting your lawn in early spring, when not many flowers are blooming yet, is not the best thing to do. Understandably, if this is your first time it may be hard to get comfortable with a bit of messiness. Here’s a suggestion: don’t go “all the way.” Give your lawn a partial haircut instead of a full buzz cut by leaving islands or streams of lawn untouched by the mower where the wildflowers can bloom. Try mowing wide paths so you can walk around, watch the activity and enjoy the changing shapes and colors. Have these paths lead to a bench, a birdbath, a statue, or a big pot of flowers. If you’re worried about what the neighbors will say, mow a buffer along the edges and along your driveway and walkways to show the new look is intentional. No Mow May saves time, saves money, provides for quiet relaxation, and eliminates noise and air pollution (the EPA attributes 5% of U.S. air pollution to mowers). Natural landscapes attract more bird species providing a chance for birdwatching, and they offer opportunities for photography, painting, or simply observing our native wildflowers and the pollinators that flock to them. (Note: Please Check Your Town Blight Ordinance about Meadow Restrictions. Here's how one Pollinator Pathway group challenged and updated their city's blight ordinance to allow managed meadows. ) Click on a Sign Design to Download for Printing Lawn Signs at Your Local Printer No Mow May

Gail < Back 84 Witchtree Rd I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

Beth < Back 3 Visconti St. I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

Andrea < Back Hart Magnet Elementary School, 61 Adams Ave I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy. Swamp milkweed, butterfly weed, joe peewees, iron weed, false sunflowers, phlox, trumpet vine, yarrow, early meadow rue, hepatica, pussy toes, poke milkweed, Solomon’s seal, ostrich fern, echinacea

Visit our public garden in Orleans at . < Back Theresa's Way 44 Main Street, Orleans, MA 02653, USA A pollinator pathway at Theresa’s Way in Orleans, MA sponsored by the Orleans Improvement Association is under development.

David < Back 114 Hubbard Stret I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

Advisory Board Member < Back Nick Dorian, Ph.D. Advisory Board Member As a scientist, Nick studies the ecology and conservation of wild bees. He received his Bachelor’s degree and his Ph.D. in Biology from Tufts University where he was supported as National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and Switzer Environmental Fellow . He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Chicago Botanic Garden working to optimize pollinator gardens for biodiversity conservation. As a teacher, Nick sparks wonder in his students for the natural world. His Pollinator Safaris are always a huge hit. Nick is a highly sought-after public speaker. In 2022, he gave a Tedx talk titled “We’re Saving the Wrong Bees.” He is the author of Bee Watching , the first field guide to wild bees of eastern North America, and he teaches an annual course at Eagle Hill Institute on the topic. Nick is also the founder of the Tufts Pollinator Initiative , a student-led project to build capacity in the greater Boston, Massachusetts area for pollinator conservation. In his spare time, Nick enjoys going on long runs, playing cello, and making tortillas. He is also an accomplished photographer, and a selection of his work can be found on this page. Previous Next

Top of Page Patch For Specialists Small Yards Containers Xeriscaping Native Garden Designs Pollinator Patch Garden Design Patch Native Garden Designs to Attract Specialist Bees of the Northeast Landscape Interactions located in Western Massachusetts works with Pollinator Pathway organizers (individuals, communities, and municipalities) to design restoration plantings and pollinator action plans with a focus on planting for specialist bees and. Below are project designs and plant lists done for projects in CT & MA that are available for download, use and sharing. Learn more at this recorded webinar about the McKeon Farm project in Ridgefield, CT. Planting toolkits from projects commissioned from Landscape Interactions along the Pollinator Pathway: The Green Corridor (Westport, CT) McKeon Farm (Ridgefield, CT) Pollinate Northampton (Northampton, MA) Egremont Pollinator Pathway (the Berkshires, MA) Lincoln Pollinator Action Plan (Lincoln, MA) For Specialists Native Garden Designs for Small Yards Small Yards Tips for Success: Line the bottom of the container with weed fabric--this keeps the soil from leaking out of the bottom and making a mess. You can use large pine bark nuggets in the bottom (if the containers are deep) instead of soil. They are lighter and cheaper. On top of the nuggets, use a good quality organic planting mix and fill it to about 1 1/2"-2" from the top (including plantings). Add some Plant Tone fertilizer and a little light mulch on the top. Mulching over the winter is a good idea. Wild Ones Native Garden Designs This site provides practical, educationally-sound information on native landscaping developed specifically for first-time native plant gardeners looking for help getting started. The site also features a growing number of free, downloadable native garden designs created by professional landscape designers for multiple ecoregions in the United States, taking into account various light, soil and moisture conditions. The Great Barrington Pollinator Action Plan is an educational toolkit that could be picked up by anyone in the northeast region of the United States, and likely provide enough information to identify and prioritize sites, and implement pollinator habitat in those areas. Anyone with access to a piece of land or sidewalk strip can use this plan. Click on the image below for more information. Container Plantings These containers were used by the Ridgefield CT Pollinator Pathway along Main Street, but they would work for apartment owners, on patios, or even as window boxes. The 2'x2'x4' containers came from Walpole Outdoors https://walpoleoutdoors.com/ They are in part sun and are out all year. Most perennials come back each year without any problems. These boxes have succession planting, so there is something blooming all 3 seasons—plus a small red cedar tree and Christmas fern in winter. Plantings should be tailored to the site conditions, but Ridgefield uses: asters phlox (early blooming) euphorbia agastache allium silvery sedge purple love grass slender goldentop (Euthamia) (early blooming) coreopsis annual flowering herbs as fillers spring bulbs are an option for early spring Additional Container Plants Recommended by the Audubon Society for Birds and Butterflies: blue-eyed grass Canadian ginger little bluestem switchgrass dicentra trumpet honeysuckle three-toothed cinquefoil cardinal flower (both colors but the red needs more moisture) lyre-leafed sage (salvia lyrata) dwarf joe-pye weed low bush blueberry mountain mint (muticum) Recommended by Greenwich Botanical Center (click on the images below for more information) Containers Water Conservation and Xeriscaping Xeriscape design is water efficient landscaping that relies on native plants that are drought tolerant. In Connecticut and New York, water has always been plentiful, but climate change and development are putting new pressure on water supplies. We are taking more and more water from our rivers and streams to water our lawns and gardens. 40% of the water we use in Southwest CT is used outdoors--in the summer that number jumps to 70%. More information on xeriscape landscaping. Norwalk Pollinator Pathway partners, the Rowayton Gardeners, have planted a model xeriscape garden at Bayley Beach in Rowayton, CT, pictured here. Here is the plant list they used. Xeriscaping

Seed Sowing Workshop Join the Pollinator Pathway at COPIA HOME & GARDEN 475 Smith Ridge Rd South Salem, NY 10590 on Saturday March 16, 2024 from 10 - 12 for a Seed Sowing Workshop eco59 Native Plant seeds and soil will be provided Bring your own container or purchase a locally made "Seed Starting Kit" $20 suggested donation to the Pollinator Pathway Please register by Wednesday March 13, 2024 Register