Betsy Ross School pollinator garden closes down for season

Pollination achieved through the hard work of bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other essential wildlife can make for a gorgeous garden that can last for years. 

That’s what students and teachers at Betsy Ross Elementary School learned this fall with its very own pollinator garden on the perimeter of its north playground. The school is at 1315 Marengo. 

It was installed after Mother’s Day last spring and on Nov. 4 cleanup began. That exercise gave teacher Aimee Edwards time to reflect on what the kiddos learned. 

“They loved the idea that we had some praying mantis in the garden, and lots of varieties of bees and butterflies and birds,” Edwards said. “They learned about the interactions between them so the flowers could grow.” 

Edwards and teacher Constance Hill worked to acquire a $1,992 grant earlier this year from the Illinois Schoolyard Habitat Action Grant program for the development of a pollinator garden. 

The garden was all about teaching students at the kindergarten through second grade school about conservation. Edwards showed video clips of pollinators, which led to a discussion about how they could get more pollinators into the neighborhood. 

“They came up with, ‘We can plant flowers,” Edwards said. “(It was) bringing nature to more urban settings to help create more passion about the environment.” 

But by Nov. 4, the garden had run its course for the season, and cleanup of annuals like zinnias, many types of sunflowers, marigolds and others needed to be handled by a collective of students. They learned those plants will return, but in a different way than perennials like milkweed, black-eyed Susans and coneflowers. 

“We harvested the seeds,” Edwards said. “After the flower dies, it turns into seeds, so we can plant them again next year, so we can have more flowers.”