On Wednesday, July 24th, Alton Town Council hosted a Pollinator Friendly workshop as part of our Community Grow Club series in the Public Gardens. We discussed the crucial role of pollinators in our food chain and explored ways to support them by planting pollinator-friendly flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Participants shared personal gardening successes, and children enthusiastically selected pollinators to draw from identification sheets, creating a collage for a Pollinator Friendly Garden sign.
Emily-Jane Messenger demonstrated how to conduct a pollinator survey using the Parish Pollinator Count Sheet. We surveyed various garden areas, including the bare lawn, a traditionally planted formal round bed, a new pollinator-friendly round bed, and the Community Kitchen Garden beds. The results were as expected: the lawn had the fewest pollinators, followed by the traditionally planted bed. Interestingly, the Community Kitchen Garden beds had more pollinators than the Pollinator Friendly Flower bed.
We were fortunate to have Dr. June Chatfield OBE and Penny Raynor from the Alton Natural History Society with us. They helped identify specific pollinators like the Marmalade Hoverfly, Ladybird larvae, Bombus lucorum (White-tailed Bumblebee), and Volucella inanis (Hoverfly). They also noted the plants most attractive to pollinators, highlighting hotspots on our raspberries, yellow gazania, cornflowers, and hollyhocks, guiding us on what to plant next year.
