Above: Volunteers from the AMSA Climate Change Committee planted wild strawberries in one area of the Southborough Library’s Lawn in July. The OSPC is seeking more volunteers to help establish and maintain their Native Plants garden on the property. (image from Facebook)
If this morning’s post about volunteers at the Victory Garden, made your green thumb tingle, you may want to roll up your sleeves to help at a different community garden. This one isn’t geared towards directly growing food for humans. Instead, it’s intended to nourish native pollinators.
The Open Space Preservation Commission is sponsoring a Native Plants garden at the Southborough Library. In addition to actively supporting pollinators, it will serve to educate the public on the benefits and potential beauty of native gardens on their own properties.
The OSPC is seeking volunteers to help with the effort. The Library shared their announcement last week:
Assist the Open Space Preservation Commission!
The Southborough Open Space Preservation Commission is excited to announce the installation of a new Native Plant Garden at the Southborough Library.
In addition to being a beautiful native plant garden on the Library grounds, the goal is to have it serve as a Public Display Garden, showcasing what people can do in their own yards. It is possible to have beautiful landscaping while also helping to preserve native pollination systems and help pollinators and plants from going extinct.
The garden design is being developed from Dr. Robert Gegear’s plant list for at-risk pollinators. Dr. Gegear is a professor of biology at UMass Dartmouth. He developed the plant list after 5 years of research, which is ongoing. Breakneck Hill Conservation Land in Southborough, MA is his first research site.
Preparation of the garden site has been started with generous help from the Town of Southborough Department of Public Works. Recent heavy and ongoing rains have delayed planting until the soil can dry out.
The Open Space Preservation Commission (OSPC) is starting to build a team of dedicated volunteers to help with planting & ongoing upkeep. The OSPC is looking for any/all adult volunteers over the age of 18 to help with various stages of the planting process. Once the garden is installed, it can serve as an outdoor classroom with opportunities for many science and nature-based activities. . .
If you are interested in helping, please send us an email and we will put you on our contact list for notice of upcoming planting days and other future opportunities.
Contact the OSPC at ospcnativeplantspollinators@gmail.com
An update on August 4th from the OSPC replaced a reference to planting this week with:
We anticipate a planting work date around 8/14 and 8/15. Exact dates and times will be scheduled next week as they are weather dependent.
Updated (8/5/21 9:12 am): As I noted above, the OSPC updated its schedule yesterday. I had initially included language referring to planting this week. They are currently targeting the middle of the month.
