Pollinator Garden Program
Ashland is a community of walkers. From our charming downtown to our easily accessed mountain biking and hiking trails, people are afoot. This gives us walkers ample opportunities to chat with our neighbors and an opening to share additional information about which plants work best in Ashland: drought-tolerant, deer-resistant, pollinator-friendly natives that thrive in our decomposed granite soil. We also spot gardens that will likely qualify for our Approved Pollinator Garden Program. We have been known to leave an introductory letter on a doorstep with encouragement for the resident gardener to contact the BCUA team for more information. 

The process to have a garden certified is simple and enjoyable for everyone. The gardener submits a short form, or has someone submit on their behalf, then two BCUA team members visit the garden to get a tour and make sure that it meets our stated qualifications per the form. The nomination form is available on the Bee City USA Ashland webpage on the Ashland Parks and Recreation website, along with our requirements and an image of the garden sign that approved households can display. 

We usually make plant or habitat suggestions during the visit, but always enjoy seeing what people are doing in different parts of the city with varied microclimates and growing conditions. We encourage inclusion of natives to our area, and are considering increasing the minimum number of native plants from three to five. Once approved, the gardener is invited to accept our BCUA Pollinator Garden garden sign for a donation that just about covers the cost of the sign; most people are just delighted to accept! (A local sign company makes them for us by applying the image to a thin sheet of aluminum / poly blend. After 4 years, the signs look almost brand new.)

Tabling
​Each summer, we table at our very popular local farmers’ market at least once a month. We use the opportunity to engage with residents, share information about pollinators and gardens, and encourage gardeners to consider having their pollinator garden certified. The market is very popular, even drawing tourists from other countries! Who knows, we may have influenced another city to begin the process of becoming a Bee City USA affiliate! We also use the opportunity to advertise our Annual Pollinator Garden Tour that happens in June.

In 2019 we also tabled at a large local seed swap in Ashland, offering native seeds especially attractive to local pollinators, plus herb and flower seeds grown at North Mountain Park. Our committee member Carolyn also had a lovely time tabling at an Ashland art gallery for a “First Friday” art event featuring handmade glass flowers.

​As always, the Garden Tour booklet served as the ‘ticket’. The booklet included a map with descriptions and pictures of each garden, Phyllis Stiles’ welcome letter, a letter from BCUA about the dangers of neonicotinoids, and a little ‘advertisement’ for each participating business. With help from the City of Ashland and BCUA gardeners, we advertised the tour in the Ashland Parks and Recreation Community Playguide, on Facebook, in a press release, with flyers, and in letters in the paper. We also were featured with both video and a print story in the excellent “Literary Gardener” column for the Rogue Valley’s primary paper, the Mail Tribune. The tour booklet was available for purchase several weeks before the tour date, so it was easy for people to select the gardens they wanted to visit on this self-guided tour. Over 125 people participated in the tour over the two days, a 50% increase from 2018!

Other Activities
In 2019, Ashland Parks Commissioners and staff participated in a unique opportunity, attending a day-long workshop about organic lawn care led by Chip Osborne of Osborne Organics. Other attendees included staff from five cities, an elementary school, Southern Oregon University, the county parks, and the Ashland golf course. Sponsored by Beyond Toxics, Pollinator Project Rogue Valley, and Beyond Pesticides, the workshop included a visit to a city park in neighboring Talent for a ‘how-to’ review of soil testing, along with Chip’s recommendations for improving lawns without synthetic fertilizers or toxic chemicals. ​

We began working with the Riverwalk community to transform a little-used Ashland neighborhood pocket park into a pollinator garden park in 2018. The Riverwalk community includes 62 homes, and is across the street from Ashland’s North Mountain Park, home to BCUA. This project was suggested by Carolyn Hunsaker, a Riverwalk resident, who was “enticed” to join the BCUA subcommittee to help make her dream a reality.

The project came together after a number of planning meetings among BCUA team members, and began with several work parties with BCUA and Riverwalk residents in the summer of 2018. We began by solarizing the primary garden section (to get rid of the crab and bermuda grasses) and sheet mulching the front area by the sidewalk. In March of 2019, under Carolyn’s direction, volunteers from the community planted the front area. In the fall of 2019, the plastic was removed from the main garden area and we were very pleased to see the majority of the grass had been killed. There were some areas on the edge that we tackled manually. We immediately covered the area with cardboard and then Parks department staff delivered loads of topsoil, which BCUA volunteers shaped into mounded beds flanking a pathway through the main garden area. When we were satisfied with height and shape, wood chips (also supplied by the Parks department) were wheelbarrowed from the street to the garden. Then the area rested, to be planted in the spring of 2020. As of this writing, the garden is stunning. Thyme, veronica, joe pye weed, and milkweed grow alongside the native kinnikinick that was already there. View the album of the Riverwalk pollinator garden project here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/F8TXgAaBJL9Ttibc9 . Stay tuned for more updates in our 2020 annual report!