I’m a teacher and I want to start a community garden with my middle school students. We would like to grow a variety of flowers and other plants that will encourage pollinators. What do you recommend we plant? It should have maintenance needs appropriate for middle schoolers to provide.
Having helped several elementary and middle schools over the years with their gardens, I’ve learned that it takes a committed person such as yourself to build them, plant them and then keep them alive. The problems typically arise over the summer, when there isn’t a person or group willing and/or able to do the watering, pruning and harvesting during the hot and dry months.
This OSU Garden Ecology Lab blog post has comprehensive information about 10 of the Oregon native plants for pollinators you might consider. Depending upon how large your space is, this OSU news story has some larger species. This Ohio State University PDF resource really covers the topic, although more oriented toward a food garden.
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