The Mountain Lake PBS Pollination Station is back and blooming in its fourth 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.

It’s official – the summer has come and gone. As we shift gears into autumn, we’re looking back at all the ups and downs at the Pollination Station this season. With months of intense weather, including heatwaves and heavy rainstorms, our little garden saw big changes from week to week. Some native plant species thrived while others struggled.

In July the hearty, towering Swamp Milkweed and Cardinal Flower erupted with pink and red blossoms. Clustered Mountain Mint and Nodding Onion spread out in large bunches, flanked by more delicate plants like the Spotted Bee Balm and White Turtlehead. This rapid growth meant the return of all sorts of flying and creepy-crawling pollinators looking to enjoy the nectar, pollen and protection these plants offered. It also attracted some very unwanted pests: aphids. Fortunately, despite the arrival of these tiny insects our pollinator plants remained healthy enough for other visitors to enjoy. On July 20th families from across the North Country got to explore the Pollination Station during our Pinkalicious PBS KIDS Play Date.

As the summer marched on, August finally gave way to pockets of Brown-Eyed Susan peaking out from between the Helen’s Flower, which has almost overwhelmed the garden beds on all sides. Their sweeping stalks are still visible from the station driveway attracting bees and other curious pollinators with a cloud of eye-catching, bright yellow. On the other hand, the Golden Ragwort stayed bushy and low, never sprouting any of its signature yellow starburst flowers and we had to say goodbye to the usually hearty Great Blue Lobelia which did not return this year. But we’re optimistic for next year when we can add new pollinator plant species to the four garden plots in their place.

For now, as the temperature drops and fall is steadily ramping up, we’re excited to see what last surprises our garden has in store. The future colder weather forecast means the Pollination Station will go from providing food for our local pollinators to shelter during the long winter months. Like last year, we plan to passively overwinter the garden, providing ground cover to animals and insects, and giving them the best chance at survival.

This means that once the first frost occurs, we can stop watering and let the garden become a winter habitat. No need to clear out dead brush or lay on manure. We’ll allow plants to decay naturally, leaving them mostly uncut. Fast forward to the springtime, we will simply wait a little past the last frost before clearing out any dead branches and leaves so that overwintering pollinators nesting there have a chance to wake up naturally. 

But until then, let’s soak up the last bits of summer sun as it fades into leaf peeping season in the Adirondacks. We’ll be thinking of all the fun we had at the Pollination Station this year and hope you enjoyed our monthly updates too!

For a full season of Pollination Station updates, visit our Learn & Play blog and follow us on social media. 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! Each summer, their annual Adirondack Pollinator Festival offers opportunities to buy native plants for your own garden and includes free kids activities, conservation workshops and more.

Activities, Books & More

For past updates on our Pollination Station, check out our other buzzworthy posts!