Restoring Pollinator Gardens and Habitats
There is a crisis in the populations of pollinators and many other insects in this country and around the world, due to habitat loss, pesticides, invasive species and global warming.
The Wildflower Pollinator Project is dedicated to helping turn this tide by offering resources and an education as to how members of a community can work together to repopulate pollinator gardens and the habitats that sustain them. Central to this effort is the utilization of Wildflower Nursery Kits.
Wildflower Nursery Kits were developed by horticulturists who recognized and acted to address this increasingly urgent problem by developing a simple and inexpensive gardening method. Kits not only protect wildflower seeds from being eaten and the damaging effects of global warming, they also produce an abundant supply of wildflower seedlings.
Using this method, enough seedlings can be cultivated to repopulate gardens and habitats as quickly as possible. To be effective, it calls for a community effort to follow through, where a small pinch of seed can yield 50 or more plants for a community planting at a school, library or park.
Kits are composed of 15 pots, 
quality soil and wildflower seeds (Milk Weed. Bee Balm, Echinacea, Lavender Hyssop, Black-eyed Susan and others) and a 24″ x 16″ x 8″ wooden frame covered on one side with garden mesh.
Kits supply protection from global warming by waiting for the freezing temperatures of winter to stabilize before putting the seeded pots outside, (sometime in early January), and by enclosing them in a mesh covered frames so they won’t be eaten by birds or rodents.
At present, the project has created three pollinator gardens in the town of Putney, VT. They are located at The Grammar School, the Putney Central School and next to the deck at the Putney Co-op. These gardens are on-going and will be expanded year by year with the supply of seedlings cultivated by community members using Wildflower Nursery Kits. The project looks forward to making more pollinator gardens at local sites.
The project continues to reach
out in hopes of establishing gardens at other community sites in Putney and neighboring towns, as well as to provide local individuals with kits to cultivate more and more wildflowers for use in community projects and to add wildflowers to their own gardens.
So that this vital endeavor can be sustained and expanded, the project needs to acquire funding, either through a grant or by becoming, or partnering with, a non-profit organization, or in other ways. Any help in this area would be greatly appreciated.
Wildflower Pollinator Project endeavors is to inspire, aide and bring local individuals, organizations and businesses to work together with the goal of repopulating gardens and community landscapes with native wildflowers habitats. It is vital that we help reverse the population crisis effecting all bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and many species of insects and creatures we know little about, but that sustain the natural world.
It takes a village to restore habitats and save pollinators.
