The Friends of Cumberland Mountain State Park are celebrating National Pollinator Week by sponsoring a class to provide education about ways to protect and encourage pollinators.
The class will be from 1-2 p.m. Saturday, June 27, at the state park’s Recreation Lodge. The class is free and should be of interest to all ages.
The first 40 participants will have the opportunity to jumpstart their pollinator garden by receiving a starter kit and instructions how to begin their home garden. The kit will include native plant plugs and seed.
Refreshments and door prizes will also be available.
Friends President Connie Bowman and Vice President Brad Fox will be the class speakers. They have spearheaded two state Iris grants to install over 4,000 native pollinator-friendly plants at Cumberland Mountain State Park over the last three years.
Under their leadership, the state park now has two meadows filling in gradually at the ADA trailhead and above Shelter One.
Bowman and Fox will teach the steps to creating a successful container or garden bed that provides habitat that can help to protect and encourage threatened Monarch butterflies, bees and other pollinators.
The public can take steps to help save Monarch butterflies by planting milkweed to feed their caterpillars.
Increased availability of milkweed has improved their status in the USA from Endangered to the proposed Threatened list over the last few years.
This success encourages the public to keep planting milkweed and avoiding deadly pesticides.
There has been a drastic loss of the bee population and hives over the last years.
“Three-fourths of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported. “That’s one out of every three bites of food you eat.”
The public can encourage pollinators like bees, butterflies, moths, birds, bats, beetles and other insects by planting what they need for habitat and by being careful to avoid pesticides deadly to them.
Selecting native to Tennessee plants helps the ecosystem because they are adapted to this climate. They thrive better because they already have resistance to local diseases and weather issues.
Go to CMSPFriends.com, or visit the Friends on Facebook for more information.