Meet Me in the Garden learning series on native plants and pollinators

According to the National Park Service, choosing native plants can help local pollinators such as bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, bats, and more! Pollinators are responsible for 1 out of 3 bites of food we take each day. They are essential for the health of our ecosystems and the health of many of our food crops. However, pollinator populations are declining worldwide largely due to habitat loss and pesticide 

Gardeners attending the Brown Family Environmental Meet Me in the Garden event on Aug. 5 learned about ways to create a pollinator-friendly garden from Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist and BFEC gardener, Terri Heironimus. 

The BFEC garden features a variety of native and some non-native plants that are selected to bloom sequentially throughout the growing season. Early blooms include wild columbine, spiderwort and clustered bell flowers. Midsummer plantings include echinacea, red cardinal flowers, royal catchfly and blazing star. Late season pollinators include familiar iron weed and goldenrod as well as red cardinal flower and great blue lobelia, which is one of the deer resistant pollinators. Compass plant, joe pye weed, American germander, and mountain mint are also great deer resistant plants.

Local interest in planting natives, supporting pollinators and preserving biodiversity is growing and many groups are doing important work towards these goals.

To learn more, check out: Homegrown National Park / homegrownnationalpark.org and Pollinator Pathways / pollinator-pathways.org

"Meet Me in the Garden" sessions are sponsored by the Knox County Local Food Council. Vine & Lawn Community Garden will host the next Meet Me in the Garden learning session: Gardening for All Abilities on Aug. 26 at 6 p.m.

Vine and Lawn is the newest Community Garden and will also have a ribbon cutting ceremony at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 26. The garden address is 1009 E Vine St, Mount Vernon.