Hi Rossana! You're welcome to check out the Granby School Garden facebook page and search/scroll through the posts to see how they are maintaining their Ohio native plant meadows and native butterfly habitat through the work of Master Gardeners, parent volunteers, and LDS missionaries. www.facebook.com/granbyschoolgarden
You'll also find some info on how they are following best practices as outlined by bee ecologist Heather Holm and others to provide nesting habitat for solitary bees in the pithy stems of the native plants.
More info on Heather Holm's best practices for solitary bees: https://conservingcarolina.org/habitat-at-home-seed-heads-and-bee-habitats/
Hope that helps! Happy to share more info if needed.
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Amber Keller
Massachusetts Master Gardener
Life Lab-Certified School Garden Educator
Natick, MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-20-2023 12:55:24 PM
From: Rossana Martinez
Subject: Native school gardens
Thank you so much to all for your helpful answers and links.
We are working in a middle school in Essex County, NJ. It's about 30 minutes from NYC. We are in contact with the Native Plant Society, Essex County chapter. The school is already on the map of the Homegrown National Park. The school is also a River friendly school thanks to the science teachers.
The biggest challenge, as with every other type of garden, is maintenance and continuation. I just finished an Environmental Steward program at Rutgers University and I'm in the process of creating a plan for the school to have a garden volunteer group or club.
Although we received a small grant and a few donations for the materials and plants, this is a new approach to the garden. The old vegetable garden was neglected. It was too much work for only one teacher or person in charge. We thought it would be good to show examples of other schools doing similar work to the principal and teachers interested. They already took their first step of saying yes to a pollinator habitat and environmental initiative which is great.
I'm happy to share the plan we established in case that it can be useful for other schools.
Thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it.
Rossana
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Rossana Martinez
Original Message:
Sent: 05-18-2023 12:28:55 PM
From: Lisa Masukawa
Subject: Native school gardens
I also agree that your state's native plant society should have more specific resources. It also depends on if you are looking for shrubs, perennials, or annuals that are native to your state. I live in California and have a lot of resources that are specific to California.
Everyone listed great resources for finding pollinator plants that are regionally specific. I also wanted to mention the xerces society. The have a lot of great articles, research, and plant lists that can be filtered by state and regions of the United States and Canada.
https://xerces.org/
Xerces Society Pollinator Friendly Plant Lists
Lisa
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Lisa Masukawa
Original Message:
Sent: 05-16-2023 01:58:01 PM
From: Rossana Martinez
Subject: Native school gardens
Hi all,
I'm looking for information about how to maintain a native school garden. We're a small group of parent volunteers and teachers working in a middle school. We're changing the garden from a vegetable garden to a habitat for pollinators. Are there any examples or websites to use as a reference?
Thank you for your time,
Rossana
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Rossana Martinez
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