Gloucester Bee City Committee and Middle Peninsula Master Naturalists have teamed up to encourage the support of local pollinators with the installation of a Little Seed Library in the Gloucester County Main Library.
Bee City has had a Little Seed Library on the agenda since the committee began in 2022, according to their Clean Community Coordinator and Liaison Sherry Kosakowski. This year, the group was able to get the project up and running before spring arrived.
“While getting this [project] together, we heard word that Luann Johnson of the Middle Peninsula Master Naturalists started to work towards the same goal,” she said. The two groups also share some of the same members and decided to collaborate on the project.
“We are after all working towards the same purpose of helping residents in our community conserve and manage natural resources,” Kosakowski explained. Both Bee City Committee and Middle Peninsula Master Naturalists educate the public on supporting and helping pollinators thrive, right in their own backyards.
“What better way [to do that] than providing seeds for native plants that nourish and provide them habitats,” she added.
The support of pollinators starts with a healthy selection of native plants, explained Luann Johnson, the Project Manager for Middle Peninsula Master Naturalists. “Whether you are interested in bees, butterflies, birds—or any other part of nature, you have to start with plants,” she explained. “Only native plants will support our insects with flowers, pollen, nectar and leaves for food and shelter.”
In turn, pollinators will pollinate the plants, ensuring a sustained population and continuing cycle. “In addition, plants will provide seeds for many of our favorite bird species and the birds will help spread the plant seed across the habitat while feeding caterpillars to their baby birds,” Johnson said.
Now the members of the community can start their own nature preserves their own backyards by stopping by the local libraries in Mathews, Middlesex and Gloucester, both main and branch, and grabbing some native plant seeds from the new Little Seed Libraries.
