Pollinator enthusiasts got together in Winchester on Sunday to plant wildflowers at a city park. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
About 80 people – some wearing butterfly wings and bee antennae – gathered at Jim Barnett Park to help the organization Sustainability Matters plant a one-and-a-half acre wildflower meadow.
HANNAH BEMENT: Native seeds like to be right at the surface, but we don't want them to blow away. So we've got to do some stamping, maybe some dancing on them once we get them down there. You think you can help me with that? [crowd cheers]
Hannah Bement, who serves on their technical advisory board, led the crowd to a large swath of lightly turned earth. The volunteers picked up buckets of native seeds –
[seeds rustling in bucket]
– and cast them across the ground, dancing and walking overtop.
[people walking through the dirt, talking, music playing]
Jordan Herring, Winchester's arborist and grounds maintenance manager, said this partnership bolster's the city's recent designation as a "Bee City USA" affiliate. The national program encourages the conservation of native pollinators.
JORDAN HERRING: We're really trying to promote pollinator habitat, environmentally safe practices here in the city, really get people interested, you know, really learn about pollinators, and planting in their own front yard or their backyard.
Winchester resident Patty Stringer came out because she so enjoyed one of Sustainability Matters' winter seed workshops.
PATTY STRINGER: We planted seeds in milk jugs, and I've got columbines coming up, I've got Mexican Hat coneflowers!
Bement said that the meadow seed mix included Joe Pye weed, slender blazing star, and black-eyed Susans.
BEMENT: All sorts of lovely things that the bees and the butterflies are going to love, and then they're going to create lots of baby bugs for the birds to feed their babies, and it's just going to be a buzzing good time here!
The nonprofit plans to host events at the meadow later this year once the seeds have begun to grow.
