Ecco Bella, a natural and organic plant-based wellness and beauty product brand and creator of the gourmet, vegan alternative to animal broth, Boon Broth, and the vegan collagen-boosting red drink, NutraChic, is pleased to announce that its private pollinator garden in Essex County, New Jersey has been added to the Home Grown National Park map of native pollinator gardens!
According to the Home Grown website, the goal is to create biodiversity one garden at a time across America.
“In the past, we have asked one thing of our gardens: that they be pretty. Now they have to support life, sequester carbon, feed pollinators and manage water.” Said Professor Doug Tallamy T.A. Baker Professor of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware and frequent lecturer.
As of today there are Active States: 52
Users Count: 19,696
Plantings Count: 16,807
Planted Acres: 48,938
Total Land Area Acres: 2,263,178,955
With our national and local governments not doing enough to protect citizens from climate change, the Home Grown National Park website is rallying homeowners to catalyze a collective group effort of property owners, land managers, farmers and anyone with some soil to plant in to start a new habitat by planting native plants and removing most invasive plants.It is the largest cooperative conservation project ever conceived or attempted.
“In collaboration with Kim Eierman of Ecobeneficial, we planted our pollinator garden in 2017 with 3000 seedlings and 100 varieties. They in turn, have grown robust and so abundant that we now hold an annual plant sale to benefit our local environmental group Our Green West Orange; and are delighted to see our neighbors and interested residents carry away armloads of native plants for their own gardens,” said Sally Malanga, Founder of Ecco Bella. “In addition, where we once had a pollinator food desert of ordinary lawn grass, we now offer a pollinator buffet of milkweed, rattlesnake master, great blue lobelia and goldenrod among the hundred or so species of native plants and grasses that inhabit our property.”
The Ecco Bella pollinator garden, affectionately known as Sally’s Pollinator Garden, after the company founder, is stewarded by students. The hands-on caretaking has helped the young people connect to nature as they feel and see first-hand how crucial native plants are to the students’ own future survival on the planet. Students get out from behind their computers and plunge their hands into the soil, rain or shine, transplanting, weeding and observing the ongoing parade of blooms with the simultaneous arrival and departure of the native butterflies and bees. They experience the evolution of the garden as it puts on its theatrical show from April through October, starting with the reddish leaves and white flowers of beardtongue foxglove and ending with yellow fireworks goldenrod in October.
The garden is irrigated to survive the unpredictable weather and is bordered by a forest which offers partial shade and security for the birds. One can watch the many native bees prospecting for pollen on the tall stalks of lavender-colored anise hyssop and pink bee balm. A number of monarchs, viceroys, skippers and swallowtails can be seen swooping and soaring over the heads of the plants, but there are not nearly enough. “This garden should have many more butterflies, and I hope it will only help them survive and thrive,” said Sally Malanga.
“I am going to miss the pollinator garden when I am away,” said student caretaker Andrew Kapferer, “It is so calming to me.”
It’s important to plant trees and eat plants to save our planet.
“I am going to miss the pollinator garden when I am away,” said student caretaker Andrew Kapferer, “it is so calming to me.”
It’s important to plant trees and eat plants to save our planet.
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