Bee Friendly Projects

In the spring of 2023, the Bee Friendly committee applied for the Town of Carbondale's Adopt-A-Garden program and received the Sopris Park bridge gardens as our project.

The intention of the public garden improvements was to have a more intentional appearance to the prominently placed gardens in an extensively used town park, and to showcase waterwise native and adaptive plants for this semi-shade garden.

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Committee members and volunteers initially prepped the five garden beds around the bridge by pulling weeds and trimming the shrubs. Jillene Rector and Lisa DiNardo spent four Monday's in the fall of 2023 tending to the five garden plots around the bridge.

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They edged, lay cardboard in areas where grass was growing in the bed and mulched with a 3" layer of bark mulch. The southeast and northeast Bridge Gardens have two cultivated Elm tree varieties that were a few feet outside the garden edge and for mowing ease and aesthetics, we included the trees in the gardens. The result is there won't be tree injury due to mower or string trimmer damage and the gardens now have an elevated appeal with incorporating the trees. Bee Friendly members planted numerous bulb species in the fall for a spring welcoming. Environmental Board member Hannah-Hunt is credited with ordering the bulbs and organizing the bulb plantings.

 In the spring of 2024, Bee Friendly will revisit the gardens and reassess garden maintenance.

The Town of Carbondale Parks Department and Carbondale Historical Society Heritage Gardener Sue Gray are partnering with Bee Friendly to create a 200 s.f. pollinator garden at the southwest corner of the park. The plants in this garden will attract a variety of wild insect species which will provide their pollination services to   Hattie's Kitchen Garden at the Thompson House Museum.

Sod cutting is one option to remove turf. This has worked well for local homes to quickly prepare a garden for new native planting.

In partnership with Town of Carbondale, Bee Friendly is working to re-imagine this public garden with low-water native pollinators.

Native pollinator plants support specialized local native pollinators! Each and every pollinator garden is an opportunity to support biodiversity, water conservation, and community beauty.

Have an idea for a project, we'd love to collaborate with you!