Fountain
It has been a beautiful spring this year. The Bird Garden has benefited from the rains and is looking lovely. There are plenty of blooms to see and some of the plants have doubled in size over the past couple of weeks. The bees were particularly busy gathering pollen from the bee balm flowers.
NatureScapers will be working in the Bird Garden every other Monday for the rest of the growing season. Two things happened last autumn that have given us renewed focus and enthusiasm. First, Dan Pearson, Director of St. Louis Audubon Society’s wonderful Bring Conservation Home program visited the garden and awarded it Platinum Certification, the highest award level. This is a testament to our commitment to provide valuable habitat for birds and other wildlife. We have a lovely new sign which we have yet to install.
Bring Conservation Home
Platinum Status Sign
https://stlouisaudubon.org/bch/
Second, NatureScapers met with Jesse, Aubrey and Christopher for a planning session and decided to make some changes to improve the appearance and functionality of the garden for humans and to add to the diversity of native plants that benefit pollinators, other insects and the birds that depend on them.
We came to the conclusion that it really is possible to have too much of a good thing so we’re casting more critical eyes at plants such as the aromatic asters that are so prolific. They are beautiful in bloom and wonderful for pollinators but they are thugs and some of them just had to go to make room for other beautiful, beneficial plants. We have cut back or removed overly exuberant plants that were crowding the pathways, making them too narrow for visitors to walk comfortably side by side. Two large shrubs at the eastern end of the path were removed to reduce crowding and open up views into the rain garden.
We also reduced the size of the gathering space on the west side of the paved path that bisects the garden and enlarged it closer to the bench where it will benefit from shade from the sumac tree. We did this by reducing the size of one flower bed and enlarging two others.
Of course, there is still work to be done – it’s a garden after all and always changing. Go and see it for yourselves.
More information on where to find the Bird Garden can be found in one of our previous posts, which you can find by clicking this link.
https://www.ucityinbloom.org/gardens/bird-garden/
For nostalgia and perspective, below are a couple of historic photos from when the Bird Garden was first installed.
Barbara Brain – NatureScapers
Fountain and paths before being planted.
The rain garden. (Click the link to go to the Missouri Botanical Gardens website and learn more about rain gardens.) https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/sustainability/sustainability/sustainable-living/at-home/rainscaping-guide/rain-gardens
