(by Willa Coroka)

Manchester’s premier Pocket Pollinator Garden is officially planted and growing at its first location at Beech Street Elementary School. The Pocket Pollinator Gardens, designed to support both wildlife and people, are funded by generous grants received by US Fish & Wildlife Services and the State Conservation Commission (Moose Plate) Grant Program Funding with the goal of restoring natural habitats to urban environments through a community-based approach. The pollinator gardens at Beech St. combine a variety of native plants with variable bloom times that appeal to the needs of both the adult and larval stage of the myriad insect pollinators endemic to our region. The new gardens offer a green space for students to engage with nature through wildlife encounters and as it turns out, wildlife was waiting on standby for this site to flourish. Within fifteen minutes of planting our final native specimen, we had three bumblebees, two sulphurs, and one monarch fly by for a visit!

Volunteers were paramount in site preparation and plant installation with hard working busy bees arriving from the Beech St. Elementary community, UNH Master Gardeners, NatureGroupies.org, and Fidelity Investments. Stage one of this project consisted of removing pre-existing plantings surrounding the entryway of the school. Volunteers dove in over the course of three days to eradicate invasives, remove dead shrubs, relocate pre-existing yews, clear crabgrass, and amend the silty soil with yards of compost generously donated by Sapurka Supply of Goffstown. Next came the actual planting where new volunteers, and some returnees from the initial clearing, dug in and installed just shy of 200 plants across four separate beds. Plant material was purchased from several local nurseries, including Bagley Pond Perennials in Warner who specialize exclusively in natives. Additional plants arrived as donations from individual gardeners and the folks at Pleasant View who provided the generous supply of Rudbeckia now lining the walkway to the main entry.

Our final volunteer event was spent mulching the last garden plot and adding a path to the picnic table, generously donated by the amazing team at Girls At Work, Inc. After the finishing touches were made, the Beech St. fourth graders were given a tour of their new pollinator gardens through a mini pollinator program delivered by Project Implementation Specialist, Willa Coroka and assigned the task of creating unique and colorful plant labels to adorn the new specimens installed around their schoolyard. To say we are eager to see how these plants overwinter would be an understatement. With new shade trees and plants that appeal to pollinators while brightening the landscape, we are hopeful that the new Pocket Pollinator Garden at Beech Street will be enjoyed by students, teachers, pollinators, and the public alike.

Our next Pocket Pollinator Garden is scheduled to break ground at Mill #3 where Girls At Work, Inc., the SeeScience Center, and the Millyard Museum are located. We are excited to transform another corner of Manchester into an interactive native garden as we invite pollinators and people to share in the beauty inspired by nature.