STATE COLLEGE — The Arboretum at Penn State opened its long-anticipated Pollinator and Bird Garden to the public on June 30.
As people strolled through the garden and examined the new features such as the bee pavilion, Shari Edelson, director of operations, and Harland Patch, director of pollinator programming, were available and eager to answer questions.
A miniature — compared to this new — Pollinator Garden was a part of the Botanical Garden that Penn State completed in 2009. The envisioned and newly-constructed garden increased by 60 percent the area of the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens.
“It is fantastic,” said Patch. “It is, I would say, 80 percent of what I had hoped for.”
He shared the reason for the tall structure known as the bee pavilion.
“It is open to the elements, but situated in such a way that the glass enclosure that we will fill with bees will not be in direct sunlight,” said Patch. “There will be a pathway, a runway out so that there is no interaction between human and bee.”
The Pavilion will be a year-round teaching area for kids and adults alike to observe the lives of bees. Signage will further educate visitors to the pavilion.
The $9 million project is a “fantastic” addition for students, tourists and the entire community, said Edelson.
“I have worked here for eight years, first as director of horticulture and now as director of operations. We have learned so much as the garden has been developed,” she said. “Private donors have accomplished all you see here. That says a lot about what this place means to people and how they have given for its creation. There have been 494 individual donors toward this one garden.”
The garden features two new ponds, a roofed area with benches, honey bee “individual housing” and more.
Called the “honey bee hotel,” the structure has hundreds of holes for individual bees to claim and seal off for themselves. Worker bees live closest to the areas that predators might reach. Their job is to protect the queen.
In the garden, native and non-native plants live side-by-side. Most of the plants have signs with their names. The fruit trees, planted most recently, will be labeled as well.
Patch pointed out that maize is not pollinated by bees but by wind, so some corn is mixed in as a learning aid for visiting students.
Interestingly, flowers and vegetables are grown in the same garden plot. Patch sees the garden as a place that researchers at the university will utilize to learn about pollination and communicate the findings globally.
The garden’s purpose is to attract all the many kinds of pollinators that live in Pennsylvania. There are hundreds. The many plants attract the insect pollinators, and the insects then attract the birds. Volunteers have planted nearly 140,000 plants at the site to date.
The Arboretum is open from dawn to dusk daily. There is no charge for admission.
“That speaks well for the enthusiastic support for The Arboretum that exists here,” Patch said in referring to the free admission.
Edelson said there is more to be done, including the planting of more plants, the bee hives and bird house construction.
“We will be improving the garden forever,” she said.
The Pollinator and Bird Garden is within the H.O. Smith Botanical Garden at East Park Avenue and Bigler Road.
