WHO KNEW That 14 Upper Valley Schools Started Pollinator Gardens in 2017?

Bit by bit over the past seven years on Earth Day, students from Hanover High School have removed invasive buckthorn, honeysuckle and burning bush from woods near the school’s ropes course. Last year a forester helped cut the largest too-large-to pull buckthorns and treated the cut stumps with herbicide.

For Earth Day this year, students will pull up sprouts from seeds that those bushes left behind and replace them with native woodland flowers and shrubs.

The students’ work to restore native plants followed on a push to grow pollinator plants to help stem the decline of native bees and of insects like butterflies and moths that feed and breed on these plant species. The insects in turn serve as food for birds (also declining) and their young.

Some fifteen Upper Valley organizations got the ball rolling in 2017 by sponsoring three events by scientists from UVM, UNH and the VT Center for Ecostudies at the Montshire Museum. That year, local garden clubs and the biodiversity subcommittee of the Hanover Conservation Commission were inspired to grow pollinator plants for local schools.

A listserv plea for used nursery pots and trays pulled in a huge collection at the Lebanon Coop. Volunteers took home seedlings that were germinated in Dartmouth’s warm, moist orchid greenhouse. Once the seedlings were about 4" tall, trays were delivered to 14 schools in 8 different towns, including Hanover, Lebanon, Lyme, Norwich, Hartford, Bradford, Fairlee and Enfield.

At Hanover High School, the students installed groupings of about ten varieties of plants in a sunny bed behind the school. The plants thrived. A few years later students were able to divide them and create a second garden bed.

Their example can be celebrated and copied. All of us can plant and restore natives. (Although, they may need to be protected from deer!) There are never enough pollinator plants in our yards and woodlands.