Y’all put Sept. 28th (yes, it is a Sunday) on your calendar. As part of Apex UMC’s Faith in Action Sunday, we will be prepping and planting a pollinator garden along the lower fence near our beehives. Julie Casavant has researched and designed this garden as a part of her Silver Award for Girl Scouts. We hope to have 75-100 folks out that Sunday morning and we can use any and all garden members to help us organize and direct this big group. If you’d like more information about plans for the pollinator garden, please e-mail me at anneh21@gmail.com. I’ll be happy to share all of our plans with you.

A pollinator garden is simply a garden that attracts and supports pollinators such as all kinds of bees, butterflies, beetles, flies, hummingbirds and bats.  We do this by providing them with a variety of native nectar-rich plants for food, water and a safe place to raise their young.  Our new garden will not only provide these things, but hopefully also be an educational tool to help people know how to  help pollinators in their own yards.  Why is this important?  One out of every three bites of food you eat is made possible by a pollinator.  80% of all flowering plants rely on pollinators for their survival.

The real kicker is that many of the plants that attract and feed pollinators are now treated with an insecticide that is harmful.  These neonicotinoids last a very long time and are systemic in the plant.  We will be growing our own plants or purchasing plants from an organic grower to avoid this. Check out this video from a lead researcher.  (http://www.linktv.org/video/9549/hidden-bee-killers)