The Mountain Lake PBS Pollination Station is back and blooming in its fifth year on the lawn of 1 Sesame Street—our home base in Plattsburgh, NY.
Each year we tend our garden with love and care, proudly acting as pollinator advocates in our community. The Pollination Station’s four honeycomb shaped garden beds are jam-packed with pollinator-friendly plants, providing food in the summer and shelter during winter for butterflies, birds, and bees.
At the end of the fall, we freshened up the garden by removing dead leaves and flowers and trimming back the woody stalks of many of the native plant species. Now, moving from springtime into early summer, we’re focusing on frequent weeding and, when the rain lets up, occasional watering. We’ve even brought out our favorite type of bunny deterrent: shiny, metallic pinwheels.
It’s great to see so many of the plants already bouncing back to life, bursting open with new buds and eye-catching color. Purple waves of early flowering Wild Blue Phlox stretch across the garden beds and the Nodding Onions are bushy and densely packed. Swamp Milkweed has begun shooting up between old stalks, reaching to the sun and preparing to grow tall all summer long. The Golden Ragwort is erupting with tiny, yellow flowers attached to sweeping stalks that sway in the strong winds. And Helen’s Flower is growing rapidly in giant bunches, threatening to bud with broad yellow flowers soon enough.
Despite the Clustered Mountain Mint struggling to take hold, we’ve been delightfully surprised at the return of a couple other plants we didn’t think survived last summer: Cardinal Flower and Great Blue Lobelia. Each of which is now showing up as patches of hearty stems at the front of the garden. We can’t wait to see them stretch up high, adding towering spikes of beautiful reds and blues to the medley of color. We’ll also look forward to adding new, exciting pollinator species into any empty sections later this season.
As the summer marches on we’re all abuzz as our buds blossom, awaiting the flying, hopping, or walking visitors who decide to pop by! Be sure to check back in for more updates on the Pollination Station with our Learn & Play blog and on social media.
In the meantime, keep scrolling to learn more about what pollinator gardens are, how you can start your very own, and activities to encourage a passion for gardening and environmental stewardship in your family.
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What Is a Pollinator Garden?
A pollinator garden features flowers that provide nectar or pollen to a variety of pollinating insects, like bees, butterflies and moths. Native flowering plants – ones that come from the geographic area a garden is in – are best, and pesticides and other chemicals should be avoided when caring for them. In the Adirondacks this could include bee balm, milkweed, white turtlehead, mountain mint, and phlox. These gardens are beautiful and can help attract birds and other wildlife too!
Interested in starting your own pollinator garden but don’t know how? Sign up below to receive a free packet of wildflower seeds from the Adirondack Pollinator Project, courtesy of AdkAction.
The Adirondack Pollinator Project
The Adirondack Pollinator Project helps promote the health of pollinators in our ecosystem, provides resources to become a pollinator advocate, and helps communities plant more local wildflowers to help supply pollinators with the food sources they need to survive and thrive. AdkAction partners with The Wild Center, Northern New York Audubon, and Paul Smiths College to support ongoing activities of the Adirondack Pollinator Project.
As part of the project’s Pollinator Garden Assistance Program, AdkAction has used their Mobile Pollinator Garden Trailer to plant community-scale pollinator gardens around the Adirondacks—including the one at Mountain Lake PBS! Don’t miss their annual Adirondack Pollinator Festival for free kids activities, grassland walks, conservation workshops, and to buy native plants for your own garden this summer.
Activities, Books & More
Pollinator Pathway Game
Grades PreK-3
In this all-new Nature Cat game, collect nectar for pollinators like bumblebees and butterflies to help them get the energy they need! Learn some nature-tastic facts all about pollinators and the big part they play in our environment along the way.
Gardening With Kids: How It Affects Your Child’s Brain, Body and Soul
Grades PreK-3
Planting a garden can affect not only your child’s body but also their brain and soul.
Flight of the Pollinators | Wild Kratts
Grades K-2
Join Chris and Martin as they explore the process of pollination and learn the important partnership between plants and animals. Watch these video clips to see how the Kratt brothers uncover the amazing delivery system of plants and their animal partners.
Best Gardening Books for Kids
Grades PreK-6
Inch by inch, row by row, learn to make your garden grow! Browse through these seed-filled reads and explore the outdoors through books.
Pollination and Community Action: Middle Schoolers Build a Pollinator Garden | Mountain Lake Journal
Grades 6-12
A group of middle school students in the Adirondacks get their hands dirty building a pollinator garden on school property. Follow along as the students learn about the importance of pollinators, pollinator plants, and community action.
This Vibrating Bumblebee Unlocks a Flower’s Hidden Treasure | Deep Look
Grades 6-12
Most flowering plants are more than willing to spread their pollen around. But some flowers hold out for just the right partner. Bumblebees and other buzz pollinators know just how to handle these stubborn flowers. They vibrate the blooms, shaking them until they give up the nutritious pollen.
For past updates on our Pollination Station, check out our other buzzworthy posts!