NORWICH TOWNSHIP — The McKean County Master Gardeners invite the public to visit their gardens and meadow area at the Donald J. Comes Natural Resource Learning Center at 9011 Route 46 South in Norwich Township.
“The garden area contains 18 raised vegetable beds, and the beautiful Nunundah Fields are on a newly-developed, one-acre meadow area planted as an educational tool to teach about native plants,” said Gloria Wilson, Master Gardener coordinator. “Walk along the paths and view the highlighted plants,” she added.
Demonstration gardens are developed to highlight plant types, care, sustainable practices and vegetable growth. In other cases, they are often used to test plant varieties.
Such gardens — outdoor classrooms — often provide hands-on activities that allow people to plant seeds.
Raised beds are popular in demonstration gardens. Not only are they pleasing to the eye due to their orderly appearance, but their elevation allows gardeners to begin the planting season earlier since the soil warms quicker than in the ground at lower levels.
“The produce is donated to Christian Community Services, a food bank in Smethport,” Wilson noted.
“So far this summer, 162 pounds of a variety of vegetables have been donated to C. C. S.,” added Jen Mack, a Master Gardener.
“Looking at the unused portion of the Comes Center, we decided we could improve that unproductive area that was prone to wetness by introducing native pollinator plants, which would create an opportunity for the public to enjoy the blooms and observe the wildlife seeking food in the refuge,” said Diane Caldwell, project leader and also a Master Gardener.
Pollinators are usually insects or animals that transfer pollen from plant to plant. While birds, bats and butterflies are common pollinators, wind and water can also be included in this group.
Master Gardeners cleared a path through the meadow leading to Potato Creek — “Nunundah” is a Native American word translated as “potato” — and back to the beginning.
The existing vegetation was mowed. Large sheets of black plastic were placed over the area and remained there until this spring.
A pollinator seed mix appropriate for this site was purchased, Caldwell said. It included Siberian wallflowers, lance leaf coreopsis, sulphur cosmos, purple cone-
flowers, Indian blanket flowers, lupine, butterfly milkweed, New England Aster, black-eyed Susans and evening primrose.
To show additional pollinators, areas of lesser-known pollinators have been planted individually. This allows the species to be observed for sustainability in our area.
Caldwell said compass plants can grow up to eight feet tall and live to be 100 years old. “They have a tendency to orient themselves on a north/south axis and have been used to navigate,” she added.
Others were selected for their various unusual attributes and yet appeal to a variety of pollinators and birds.
Both the garden and Nunundah Fields have educational signs to enhance the visitors’ experiences, Wilson said.
As a precaution, a beeyard is located on the property, which is surrounded by an electric fence.
In a related matter, Penn State researchers, Dr. Nash Turley, Thomas Butzler and Dr. Margarita Lopez-Uribe, are coordinating an ongoing project to help assess the diversity of bee species in Pennsylvania with the help of Master Gardeners.
“The survey will help provide a better understanding of what bee species exist in Pennsylvania and will provide new baseline data to determine whether bee species and bee populations are declining,” said Dr. Mary Mulcahy of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.
For this pilot project, ten Master Gardeners, each from a different Pennsylvania county, were trained in collection methods. Mulcahy represents McKean County in the project, in part because few data have been collected on bees in the county.
The Comes Center is one location where this bee sampling is occurring and the final results are not yet known. The program will be expanded to additional Master Gardeners in McKean County and throughout the state in 2022.
Mulcahy, an associate professor of biology, said she is excited to be part of this project and is enjoying learning so much about our local bees.
Noting the large number of native ground-nesting bees in this area, she said, “Although we often think of large hives of honey bees — which are really European in origin — when we think of bees, a majority of the native bees in Pennsylvania nest underground. They are generally less likely to sting a human than honey bees, and the native bees are also very important local pollinators, especially of our native plants.”
Mulcahy told The Era, “The bee monitoring project will provide data to safeguard and promote these important native bees.”
