Urban Agriculture

The Urban Agriculture imperative requires that 15% of our given area must be dedicated to growing food. In order to fulfill this, the decision was made to build multiple pollinator gardens on the site. Although not the traditional way of food production, pollination is an extremely important step in the creation of agricultural goods. A pollinator garden is a plot of land that is filled with native plants and flowers that attract a plethora of different pollinators, to enhance growth throughout the given space. These pollinators, that the gardens seek to allure, are extremely important to saving our Earth, especially butterflies and bees. These insects are great at helping plants reproduce, as they help spread pollen from one plant to another, which aids flowers and fruit to produce seeds that plant new plants. In fact, bee pollination accounts for about $15 billion in added crop value.

Our species of particular interest is butterflies, as they indicate a healthy environment, increase biodiversity in plants, micro organisms, and animals in their ecosystem. As remarkable as butterflies are, bees also play a crucial role in our ecosystem as a whole. They support plant growth, which supplies homes and food for creatures of all sizes including us. If the butterflies and bee populations disappear, the impact will be massive, sending calamity throughout the world. About two-thirds of the crop plants that feed the world rely on pollination by insects or other animals to produce healthy fruits and seeds for human consumption. Pollination benefits human nutrition - enabling not only the production of an abundance of fruits, nuts and seeds, but also more variety and better quality. Without them we would lose fruits, vegetables, flowers, plants, trees, and animals because they would have nothing to eat. Without bees, plants would produce fewer seeds and would have lower reproductive success. It is estimated that if bees went extinct, the world would only have four years left to live.

In order to create the best garden possible, native plants are crucial in planting a pollinator garden because you don’t want to invite invasive species into your spot, and to make sure you are attracting native pollinators to help their existence in your state. Some examples of native plants in Pennsylvania are, The Clustered Mountain Mint, Common Boneset, and the Swamp milkweed (Click here for more!). 70 pollinator species are qualified as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Creating a pollinator garden allows pollinators to have a space full of everything they need and to stay alive, healthy, and save our planet. Through deep research of which plants will attract and benefit a diverse group of pollinators, we formulated a list of 65 plants that will help increase the pollinator population in our area. Our hive will not only include shrubs, like the witch alder and smooth hydrangea, to ensure pollinators will be able to get pollen/nectar when it is rare for pollinators to find any during the springtime, but also perennials, like the goldenrod and blue flag iris, to give pollinators a stable food source throughout multiple years and a shelter for beneficial insects that will keep harmful pests under control. We are also including the butterfly weed, which is critical to the survival of monarch butterflies which is listed as an endangered species and are in critically low levels.