Community

Porter Township Recreation Board dedicates Pollinator Garden to community, residents and visitors

LAMAR -- The Porter Township Recreation Board recently dedicated its Pollinator Garden to the community, township residents and visitors.

The event was held as part of the Annual Heritage Days Festival in June, the dedication included refreshments, rock painting and coloring activities for the youth, giveaways and door prizes for all ages.

Master Gardeners and beekeepers were on hand to answer any questions that the community had concerning plants and pollinators. In the future there will be educational opportunities for the community to learn more about the importance and value of these pollinators.

The Pollinator Garden is located along the walking path at the lower level of the Porter Township Recreation Park, 35 Washington Ave., Lamar, and has been in development since October of 2018.

The garden includes native PA perennial plants and flowers, along with some non-native annuals, all of which attract butterflies, bees, and other natural pollinating insects and animals.

The community walking trail runs along Fishing Creek and brings you around to the meadow and pollinator garden complete with an arbor and lovely garden bench situated amongst the garden. This spring, the meadow on the other side of the garden was planted with wildflowers that the board hopes will bloom next year.

The garden also includes an Insect Hotel -- built by PSU Master Gardeners, Jim Randall and Charles Kincaid; two Butterfly Houses, custom built for this project by local craftsman, Dennis Homiak; as well as several smaller bee houses and birdhouses throughout the park.

PSU Master Gardener Debbie Liquori designed the garden layout and advised the garden volunteers throughout the entire development. Other Master Gardeners that assisted with advice and donation of plants were Tina Klinefelter and Deb Burris. Master Gardeners built and donated a wonderful Pollinator/Insect House.

The original volunteers, Pete Lee, Josh Lee, Cathy, and Gary Gates spent the first year preparing the soil by laying down cardboard, natural fertilizer, mulching and laying out the suggested design.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the following year, the progress was slow going but with determination and hard work the garden progressed.

This was a project that the board quickly realized would take many more volunteers.

People like Lisa and Fern Dunkle, Ryan Gates, Snavely Mills -- who loaned the use of skid steer and tractors -- Sara Eggler, Fish Real Estate agent and active board member willingly jumped in to help with everything, with the onset of COVID in late 2019.

Sara even joined the Recreation Board and was quickly nominated as secretary to make sure it would continue to be successful in the planning and development of the garden and other future developments.

Pam and Vienna MacIntosh also joined the team this summer to help with the grandopening and with weeding and watering.

"Absolutely none of the pollinator garden could have been completed without the tremendous amount of time put into it by Rich Brungard, Recreation Board Chairman and active volunteer," said in a release from the recreation board. "We are so thankful for his hard work and the patience that he has shown to us throughout the years of developing the garden."

The gardening volunteer group is always looking for community members who would be able to lend a hand in keeping the park beautiful.

"We count ourselves extremely fortunate to have such a lovely park to hold picnics, reunions, ball games, children's playgrounds, and enjoy clean facilities and now a walking trail and pollinator garden," the release said.

While each of the volunteers are different and have great ideas, they all had the same goal -- to maintain the effort in creating an additional outdoor space where residents and visitors could safely enjoy and learn about the importance of pollinating plants and insects, and have fun doing it.

The Porter Twp. Recreation Board and Community Garden volunteers plan to host more events in the park and garden areas throughout the season. The board would like to try to expand the walking trail in the future and provide other features for the community, but of course, in order to do this they need more volunteers!

Visit the new pollinator garden and contact a board member if you would like to consider joining the gardening volunteer effort.

Contact Sara Eggler, Porter Twp. Rec Board Secretary for more info on volunteering at (570) 502-3241 or Seggler@fishre.com.