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Facilities
Students, Grounds Staff and Volunteers Install New Pollinator Garden
UMass student volunteers and grounds staff recently completed the planting of a new pollinator garden and meadow located at the top of Eastman Lane. The group planted approximately 2,700 seed plugs of native pollinator-friendly species of plants and shrubs following two days of preparation by Facilities and Campus Services’ Landscape and Grounds staff.
The project to install the campus’ second pollinator garden was a collaborative effort involving 40 students from the first-year seminar “Bee the Change: Pollinators, People, and a Sustainable Future,” led by Aliza Fassler, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Environmental Conservation. They were joined by staff and interns from the Landscape and Grounds team plus over 60 staff and student volunteers from the UMass Fernald Entomology Club and the UMass Permaculture Initiative.
The garden, which was completed on Sept. 10, was designed by senior landscape architect Cameron Roach, with support from Fassler, UMass’s new Bee Campus USA Committee, and landscape foreman Axel Boy. The variety of native flowering trees and shrubs in the garden will provide an essential habitat and food source for bees, birds, and insects during the critical months of April and May.
“This gives me the hands-on experience and knowledge that I need to pursue my dream,” says Devlin Donovan, a first-year sustainable food and farming major and student in Fassler’s class who hopes to become a beekeeper.
For Todd Cournoyer, head of grounds and landscaping, the creation of the garden represents the continuation of the work done by the late Pam Monn to move toward sustainable landscaping practices across campus.
“For me, it was really gratifying to see our staff working side by side with students and volunteers to make this garden a reality,” Cournoyer says.
The new garden is part of an ongoing campus-wide effort to utilize sustainable landscaping technology to reduce carbon emissions and support native pollinator populations. Those efforts led to UMass Amherst receiving gold-level certification by the ReWild Your Campus Green Grounds program and becoming a certified Bee Campus USA earlier this year.