Protecting Native Pollinators One Planting at a Time
With the population of native pollinators dwindling around the world, community members here in Bend decided to make a difference.
DSWCD Involvement
Deschutes Soil and Water Conservation District used various funding sources to aid the 9 planting sites that Bend Pollinator Pathways and volunteers established.
DSWCD also partnered with the Environmental Center , Bend Pollinator Pathways , and Kaci Rae Christopher - author of The School Garden Curriculum An Integrated K-8 Guide for Discovering Science, Ecology, and Whole-Systems Thinking - to create a teacher workshop on soil health for their school gardens. The funding focused on improved soil health through the creation of a school garden's workshop for Central Oregon educators. Each school was provided with Blanketflower, Sulphur- Buckwheat, Firecracker Penstemon, and Narrowleaf Milkweed to plant in their pollinator corridors as well as $200 for soil amendments (compost, straw, mulch, manure, cover crop seeds, and etc).
About BPP
The Bend Pollinator Pathway is the first native pollinator habitat connectivity project in our region. Based on the success of this program out of the Northeastern United States, the plan is to grow to include all communities throughout Central Oregon and beyond.
Hear from Bend founder, Basey Klopp, how it all got started:
"Though I had long been a gardener, I had never stepped back to consider that not all plants would be equally beneficial to other forms of life … There are many specialized relationships between insects and plants that scientists are still learning about, but frighteningly, there are others that we may have unwittingly snuffed out in ignorance.
I have always been a champion of the underdog, so the plight of imperiled native wildlife and plants resonated with me. In the midst of the turmoil of 2020, I saw a news story on a young man who used his stimulus check to start a nonprofit that takes inner city kids fishing, a mission that was close to his heart. I was inspired and decided to use the pandemic time at home to do more to grow local pollinator habitat efforts across our community.
Another huge catalyst that made inaction non-negotiable was the population of Western Monarch butterflies that was documented in 2020 - at 30,000 their low numbers were considered to be the threshold of extinction. I could not abide a world where a creature, who numbered in the millions when I was a kid, might no longer exist as my own children grow. That devastation catapulted me into action."
This map shows the projects completed with the aid of DSWCD Funding.
Through her drive, Klopp planted pollinator habitats with her kids at their preschool and elementary schools. She also received a grant from Mt Bachelor's Protect Your Playground program in 2014 to install pollinator habitats on city of Bend property, and she partnered with Central Oregon Locavore to plant a habitat at their location on Third Street in Bend.
"Once I started researching, I found an established organization on the East Coast that was doing exactly what needed to be done here - the Pollinator Pathway. I asked if Bend could be the first city on the West Coast to join their network of connected pollinator habitats, and I got to work assembling a group of local experts to advise the implementation. I was thrilled by the enthusiasm and support of our regional nonprofits, academic institutions and folks in the know about the challenges faced by our native pollinators.
Pollinators come in all shapes and sizes, notably small. Some tiny bees can only travel about 800 yards from their nests to find pollen and nectar. These little guys cannot survive in vast oceans of turfgrass or pavement. In order to exist, they require connected patches of pesticide-free habitat that offers food (flowers), water, and nesting areas. This was what I set out to do a year ago - connect pollinator habitats across our community."
- Basey Klopp, BPP Founder
Before and After Photos
Overturf Butte (Before: April 21, 2021; After: September 27, 2021)
Bend International School (Before: August 24, 2021; After: September 22, 2021)
COCC Pollinator Habitat (Before: October 2021; After: October 27, 2021)
October 30th Volunteer Planting Day
For each project, Bend Pollinator Pathway and volunteers planted native pollinator plants to further establish the connected path in Bend. Native plants are the most vital for ensuring the health of our native pollinators because the two co-evolved to fit the needs of on another. So, the plants used for these six projects offer the most nutritional potential to native pollinators. Being native to this region, these varieties are more drought-tolerant than non-native plants.
Volunteer Experiences
"I think there's a real shift happening in how people look at landscapes. It's no longer all about how you can make a space work for you. Climate change and urban expansion have made us examine what kind of future we want to create for ourselves, and we're beginning to realize we need to protect the creatures that call our parks, backyards and thoroughfares home. We're beginning to turn away from chemically-laden, ecologically sterile turf lawns in favor of native plant landscapes because we want to see butterflies flitting about on a hot summer evening and know that the bees visiting our flowers aren't feeding on tainted pollen. We want to exist in a way that doesn't lead to the destruction of everything beautiful.
Efforts like the Pollinator Pathway of Bend bring awareness to how simple it can be to maintain or restore natural habitat. It doesn't have to be grand and it doesn't have to happen all at once. It just has to happen."
- Lisa, BPP Volunteer
"One of my favorite memories of volunteering with the Bend Pollinator Program (in 2021) was helping to plant 200 native plants around 5 or 6 different areas this past fall with support from the City of Bend.
It makes me excited looking forward to this upcoming spring in 2022. Seeing these new plants sprout and continue to grow, but others being able to enjoy them while helping the bees."
- Connor, BPP Volunteer
