The city I live in had created a new park out of donated land.  When I visited the park, it had paths, signage, an observation deck and a boardwalk. It also had a cement plaza with a compass painted on the surface. I thought this plaza made a nice base for a flower garden, but the land around it was completely covered with mug wort, an invasive weed that indicated the soil was poor.

I asked at City Hall about the land around the compass and offered to plant a flower garden there. Eyes rolled. Everyone knew flowers just wouldn’t succeed.  Besides, people expected big green lawns in a park. Even the trees faced too many challenges from the intrusion of too many people. But go ahead, give it a try!

Using my Facebook group, I gathered a few volunteers, got some financial donations and bought some plants, seeds and manure.  I tossed my extra gardening tools into a bucket and we volunteers went out to the park and planted a small flower garden around the compass plaza. My secret intention was to produce a thriving habitat for butterflies. For this I made sure we obtained native species of flowers.  For the volunteers, it was the first time they had ever planted a garden that existed solely as a pollinator habitat.  We were planting for the bees and butterflies, not for human consumption.

During the first year of our garden, we had the basics: Sunflowers, Coneflowers, Gaillardias, and Brown-eyed Susans. To become certified as an official pollinator habitat, we had to get some milkweeds. During a shoreline clean-up we met with a National Parks Service employee who offered us some “cold stratified” Common Milkweed seeds. These are specially processed seeds that are sure to grow within the next planting season.  The City kicked in some free mulch from street-tree pruning.  More and more nurseries began to offer native plants, so we had a larger and larger choice of possibilities. Our garden expanded further.  By year six, the pollinator garden was 10 times the size of the original compass plaza. The compass was now at the edge of a wide meadow of blossoms.

People came to take photos. Everyone marveled at how beautiful and magical the pollinator habitat was.  But even more interesting was the response of wildlife. They too were impressed by the variety of nectar sources, seed pods, hiding places, shady rest areas and perches to sit on. Rabbits, skunks, raccoons, snakes, wasps, bees and butterflies found a home in our garden.  

The garden was an inspiration. The volunteers took the idea home and began planting pollinator gardens in their backyards. Reports came in on Facebook that all kinds of interesting critters were appearing in these heavenly backyard nature sanctuaries.  When one yard abutted another, the habitat expanded further.

The pollinator garden gave everyone an opportunity to learn, do and see that it was possible to change the world.  With this victory, we looked around us hoping to further spread the seeds of success.