Menu

butterflies

Red flower called Scarlet Beebalm with a bumblebee

2024 Green Grants Award #12: Franklin County Master Gardeners Assoc.

, , , , , , ,

Red flower called Scarlet Beebalm with a bumblebeeCongratulations to the Franklin County Master Gardeners Association for their $500 Green Grants award in the Community Beautification category!

The Franklin County Master Gardeners Association is a 501c3 non-profit organization that has existed since 1994.  Their mission is one of sharing knowledge and enhancing the environment through sustainable landscape practices.  They use horticulture and landscaping to promote community development, improve nutrition and food security, and provide positive educational experiences for youth in horticulture. The two pollinator gardens that are the focus of this grant award are located at the 4-H center in Franklin County and are maintained by Franklin County Master Gardeners.

One pollinator garden is at the Welcome Center and the other is by the Discovery Center. Both gardens are used for educational purposes when youth are at camp from June to July every summer. Their goal is to make both gardens a place where there is a consistent and coordinated message about the importance of pollinators. Materials developed by the National Association of Pollinator Partnership will be provided to teachers at the 4H camp.

Sunflower growing in a garden, with a funny faceThe funds provided by the Green Grants award will enable them to purchase and plant native Virginia pollinator plants in both gardens to support pollinators and to provide specific, educational signage about the gardens.  The gardens will demonstrate that plants should be diverse, not just in bloom time but also in color, size and shape of flower and plant size. Butterflies and hummingbirds prefer red and orange flowers with longer tubular openings. Bees like blue, violet, yellow and white flowers, and strongly prefer the Aster family, such as Golden Alexander, Cone Flowers, Brown Eyed Susans, Sunflowers, Asters, and Goldenrod.

Franklin County Master Gardeners are dedicated to educating the public about horticulture and environmentally responsible landscape practices. The 4-H pollinator gardens are designed to provide a pollinator habitat that supports and protects life. Like habitats for any living creatures, the pollinator gardens provide food and water, safe nesting sites to raise young, plus materials for building nests, and undisturbed areas for overwintering. They will use Native plants that have co-evolved alongside native bees and other pollinators and purchase our plants from a trusted source where we know the plants have been raised without pesticides, especially the systemic ones, that are toxic to bees and butterflies.

The efforts of this Green Grant award will surely demonstrate results in Community Beautification, not only for the the children and others who visit and learn about the gardens, but for the bees and other pollinators too!

 

KVB Wildflowers

Get Growing with Free Seeds

, , , , , ,

KVB WildflowersMaybe you celebrated Mother’s Day with someone who was like a mother to you?  And what about Mother Earth?  Maybe we should honor her and give her gifts.  I bet she would like some flowers – who wouldn’t?

The best kind of flowers to give Mother Earth would be to plant native flowers in your yard, in pots on a balcony, or to partner with an organization that has a public space that needs to be beautified!  We can help you get started – now is the perfect time to plant wildflower seeds, and we’d like to give you a free package of wildflower seeds!

Just go to our website to take the pledge to help end litter, and we’ll mail you some high-KVB Plantsquality Virginia wildflower seeds, like Crimson Clover, Lupine, Asters, and Rudbeckia.  Perennials will come back again each year – mine are already up in one of the pots I planted!

Why is it important to plant native flowers?  Native plants attract native insects; native insects are eaten by native birds and wildlife, so it’s said, “To feed the birds, first feed the bugs.”  Spicebush Swallowtail Butterflies’ favorite host plant is (not surprisingly) the Spicebush, providing it with food and shelter.  It stays hidden in the leaves as a caterpillar, flies around as a Swallowtail, then later the female will lay its eggs on the Spicebush. And the cycle starts over again.

Spicebush SwallowtailIf you have a shrub with some chewed edges and holes in the leaves, that’s good!  It means caterpillars are enjoying the leaves that are right for them.  Flowers and bushes that are not native to our area will not support native wildlife.

Native plants also require little irrigation or maintenance because they are already adapted to the climate and soil conditions of our region.  The same goes for native bushes and native trees.

If you’re not sure which kind of native plants are best suited for where you live, you can use this free link to the Virginia DCR Native Plant Finder.  Skip down to the second information box to enter the region where you live and choose some filters to help choose which sort of plants are best for those conditions.

Also, the Virginia Native Plant Society has published native plant guides for each of the regions of Virginia.  They are available free as a downloaded PDF, or you can purchase the physical brochures online.  Some locations of Virginia Cooperative Extension offices have physical copies available for pickup too.  Here’s a YouTube video titled, “Landscaping with Virginia Natives” that offers additional information.

Need to know where to purchase native plants?  Here’s a list of Native Plant Nurseries all around the state.  Hopefully this gives you what you need to get started with, or add, native plants in your corner of the Commonwealth.

Now, get growing!