Sagamore Hills will reuse its rain garden by creating a pollinator garden at Township Park on Valley View Road, according to the town’s website.
A rain garden and rain barrel combination was installed by former Township Trustees Rosemary Snell and James Hunt to capture and filter rainwater from the roof of a small toilet and utilize the rain barrels/gardens.
It still functions as a rain garden, filtering pollutants and reducing rainwater. But planting the garden in abundance increases the functionality of the garden because of the long plant roots that absorb rainwater and filter soil pollution.
The rain garden will have new species of plants to attract all the pollinators and will have the added value and dual function of serving as a pollinator garden, including several milkweed plants, which will provide habitat and resting place for monarch butterflies to incubate themselves. Road to Mexico.
Milkweed is the only host plant for monarchs. The butterflies lay their eggs and use only milkweed to raise the caterpillars, because milkweed leaves provide food for the caterpillars when they hatch and emerge from the chrysalis.
Adult monarchs use milkweed as a food source to fuel their 2,500-mile migration from Canada and the United States to central Mexico.
The city government involved Rushwood Elementary School in this environmental initiative. The city government and the Summit Soil and Water Conservation District participated in the spring program with Rushwood teacher Renee Piper and her student leadership team, where the students were introduced to the importance of pollinators and the idea of what could help their people because they are in crisis, high fall.
The students participated in pollinator games and received educational materials on bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Students prepared the garden by uprooting and planting native seeds, including milkweed, in anticipation of the seedlings growing in the coming spring.
Thanks to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division, “Milk for Monarchs” booklets were distributed to the students.
Students each had a packet of seeds to plant, and the seeds were donated by the Ohio Pollinator Habitat Initiative, a partnership with several like-minded organizations to save pollination, including bees and butterflies.
After planting the rain/pollinator garden, the students cover it with leaf litter to protect the seeds during the winter and prevent soil erosion.
Residents can learn more about the Ohio Pollinator Habitat Initiative at www.ohiopollinator.org.