Watertown
Community Gardens

By Pam Phillips 

Have you been noticing more pollinators buzzing around your backyard as the weather warms up? Read this great piece by Pam Phillips of Friends of Bees to learn about which species of bees you can expect to see this time of year. You can find out more about Friends of Bees here. 

Spring has arrived, with the first green shoots, the first flowers, and the first bees. The bees you’re most likely to see this early are honeybees, bumblebee queens, and mining bees.

Honeybees are awake all winter and will come out on warm days. You may have already seen them drinking nectar in snowdrops, crocuses, and dandelions. They also gather pollen from trees, even wind-pollinated trees, such as oaks, willows, and maples. The hive will feed this pollen to the brood when the queen begins laying eggs again.

Bumblebee queens sleep underground over the winter, and emerge in early spring. You may notice unusually large bumblebees zigzagging around your garden, as if they are looking for something. They are!  Queen bumblebees need a safe place to make their home, preferably a warm cavity that is very find to find, such as an old mouse nest. The queens drink nectar to fuel their hunt, often going high up into flowering trees, such as redbuds, cherries, and other fruit trees. They will also gather pollen, but not until they have found a home and started laying eggs. So if you see a big fat bumblebee carrying pollen on her legs, she’s a young queen with babies to feed. Once she has raised the first generation of workers, she will stay in the nest for the rest of her life.

A bumblebee queen gathering pollen from Bleeding Heart flowers

There are also several kinds of mining bees that emerge in spring. They are generally brownish or dark bees around the size of honeybees. They have slept underground since last spring, often under bare patches or lawn near trees that produce the pollen they need, such as willow, red maple, cherries, and other fruit trees. When they emerge, they leave open holes that look like someone stuck a pencil in the ground. There may be loose soil around the opening.

Mining bee foraging in a pear blossom

Male mining bees emerge first. You may see them zooming back and forth near the ground, waiting for the females to emerge. If you see this happening, make a note of that area. These spring bees are only active above ground for around three to four weeks, so it’s really special to catch them in action. The bees don’t want anyone to know where their nests are, so keep quiet and be still as you watch. With luck and patience, you’ll see them fly up from the hole, disappear into the trees, and come back a few minutes later. Under the ground they are digging tunnels, storing pollen, and laying eggs. When they are done, they will close the opening of the nest. And then all will be quiet until next spring.

Are you seeing bees? Let us know!

WCG holds frequent volunteer events to clean up trash and remove invasive plants from the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway. You can learn more about upcoming events here. Below, we're highlighting one volunteer's first-hand experience to bring more awareness to these events and hopefully inspire others to join! 

I arrived about halfway through the cleanup, as I am always running perpetually late. Knowing I was late, and knowing people had likely already scattered to start picking up litter, I didn't bother heading to the initial meeting point (on the path behind Target).

Instead, I headed north from the intersection, hoping to catch up with a volunteer along the way. (Being chronically late also means chronically unprepared; I didn't have protective gloves or a bag for trash).

This is the second year the Watertown Community Gardens has run a Greenway cleanup event, and the second time I've attended. It was a much nicer day compared to last year, sunny but still cool; much better than last year’s overcast gray ominously threatening a shower at any moment.

It also seemed like there were more volunteers this year, just from the number of people I spotted with trash bags. Which turned out to be correct– I found out later there were about 60 people out volunteering! I passed a number of them, working in groups or solo, as I ventured up the path.

Kids with a parent, couples, lone trash rangers, all united in a common goal. And they were doing a great job; I didn't see a single cigarette butt or plastic wrapper while I was scouring the northern Greenway for someone with spare gloves or an extra trash bag.

I did pass by a couple of filled bags, waiting patiently for DCR pickup, and... a skillet?

(DCR stands for “Department of Conservation and Recreation,” and they officially manage the upkeep of the Greenway, and, among other things, removal of trash. You can learn more on their website.)

One of my favorite parts of cleanup is the weird trash you find. Well– okay, obviously I'm not a fan of trash on the Greenway. That's the whole point of picking it up. But I am morbidly fascinated by how did this get here and why.

I can't help imagining why someone would throw a skillet away. Did they make the amateur mistake of washing the seasoning off, panic, think they ruined the skillet, and try to hide it by throwing it into the bushes on the Greenway? Who are you, skillet-thrower? What is your story?

The abandoned skillet reminded me a bit of those archaeological stories of 3,000 year old pots thrown into the trash pile with burned cheese at the bottom. I guess no matter how much civilization marches forward, people are still going to hide their cooking disasters by throwing them into the woods.

While I was pondering abandoned skillets and burned cheese, I passed a nice young man carrying a large bag of trash, who stopped dead in his tracks to look at me.

(This artistic rendition does not really resemble him, for his privacy. And a little because I have a hard time with faces.)

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

Do I know him? Should I know him? Where would I know him from? I don't go anywhere or do anything?

And that's how I met B (name redacted for his privacy, and not because I forgot it again) from my Intro to Woodworking class at Watertown Highschool. A class I'd been taking twice a week for three months.

He also had to ask my name, which made me feel marginally better about not recognizing him immediately. In my (and B's) defense, it's very hard to make polite introductions over the sound of saws, sanders, the dust collector, and everyone's enthusiastic hammering.

B also very helpfully offered me his spare gloves, so I had one half of the necessary equipment to begin trash collecting. Nice!

From there, I was able to find someone with a spare bag, and also notified Cindy (one of the Watertown Community Gardens board members organizing the event) that I was here, so she could note me down as a participant, and that I agreed to the safety waiver. 

Finally, I was ready to begin collecting trash!

That part's a lot less interesting to write about; I wandered around in gullies and up embankments, searching for trash that prior volunteers hadn't already picked up. The people who'd come before me on that section of the path had done an excellent, thorough job, but there’s always something left behind under a bush or buried in the grass.

In a way, though, it’s my other favorite part of trash cleanup, besides meeting people (again) and the strange mysteries you find. As your bag slowly fills with debris, it becomes a tangible reminder of how much your effort weighs. “Cleaning up the environment,” “community involvement,” “collective action”-- they can feel abstract, at times. Never worthless, but sort of lofty and ephemeral, ideals you can dream about but never touch. But it’s hard to forget the weight of what you’re doing when you’re carrying real, physical pounds of change in your hands, and adding to it with every bottle, bag, and…

… bike tire?

My very own weird trash! Who abandoned you, bike tire? Did you fail at just the wrong moment, and they threw you up the embankment in a fit of rage? What’s your story?

Pondering the mystery of the bike tire, I set my feet firmly, and pulled.

And… gave up because the tire was actually somehow hooked around a large PVC pipe fully buried in the ground.

I do not know how that was possible. I was not equipped to dig it out with my hands, so I left it for someone with better equipment, or more patience.

Farewell, mysterious bike tire. I was not strong enough to draw you from the earth.

However, once I was up on the embankment with the immovable bike tire, I noticed a bunch of small trash that wasn't really visible from the path because of the slope. I distinctly remember a green bottle, some wrappers, a few bags that had blown into the fence.

Picking those up lead me to even more unseen trash that had blown down the back of the embankment and up against the fence, including a bunch of old paintcans, rusting away. No idea who would throw those down an embankment, or what secrets they were hiding, but I did have a fun time thinking about it.

Maybe they were surprising someone by renovating their room...

Maybe they broke a wall while their spouse was out of town and had to emergency repair it...

Maybe they were moving out and had to repair and repaint a wall to save their security deposit...

The possibilities are endless with weird trash.

And then I looked up, and saw them.

Two suitcases?

(Both suitcases had broken wheels, and were empty of anything but dead leaves. One was missing a handle.)

I've spent the rest of the week puzzling over these. I have no idea. I can't even begin to come up with a story for why these were both abandoned up an embankment on the Greenway. I have so many questions.

As I was lost in pondering those (okay– as I was rolling up a piece of rubber mat to put in the bag) a little orange DCR truck pulled up to pick up some of the bagged trash waiting by the roadside. I ferried the suitcases down to the DCR worker, and the two suitcases drove off into the sunset; another unsolved trash mystery.

I didn't realize until he'd driven away that he'd taken my bag, too.

So my trash collection as part of the second-annual Watertown Community Gardens Watertown-Cambridge Greenway Cleanup came to an unintended end.

But I’m already looking forward to the next cleanup event– and it’s not even a year away!

The next Greenway event is on May 10th, 2025. This time, rather than trash removal, we’ll be focusing on invasive plant removal. Which has fewer trash mysteries, but is no less satisfying– I promise! If you want to help the community, steward the environment, or just have an enjoyable afternoon ripping plants up, you can sign up to be notified when the RSVP form is live here!

You can also sign up for our newsletter, to read more about what the Watertown Community Gardens does, and when we’re doing it!

written and illustrated by M. Ingram, March 2025.

Notes from the webinar "Neonics and Advocacy: Protecting Pollinators and Influencing Policy"

By Sharon Bauer, Friends of Bees 

Friends of Bees is a fellow Watertown-based group that was founded in 2014 to educate about and advocate for native bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. They are a working group within Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice, and the Environment and a frequent collaborator with WCG, specifically our Pollinator Pathways Committee. You can read more about them here.

Several members of Friends of Bees recently watched a really stunning Webinar on “Neonics and Advocacy” that is now available on YouTube through the Wild Ones website.

Lucas Rhoads from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) presented research on the harmful effects of neonicotinoid systemic insecticides. Neonicotinoids, or “neonics”, are widely used insecticides that have been linked to myriad environmental harms, though even those already familiar with this issue may be shocked. Some key takeaways from the webinar include: 

• The use of neonics has massively increased in the last 20 years, making them the most widely-used insecticide in the U.S. 

• Neonics are used to treat seeds, which then makes every part of the plant (including pollen) toxic. The treated seeds are not regulated as pesticides.

• Neonics wash off of treated seeds into soil and water systems, where they are extremely persistent. 

• Neonics have been found in 97% of samples from streams and lakes, and are not removed by conventional water treatment systems. They are highly toxic to aquatic invertebrates, leading to a collapse in aquatic ecosystems.

• A new study shows that neonics are the leading cause of declines not only in bees and Monarch butterflies, but in birds and aquatic life as well. A single treated seed can kill a small songbird. Even sublethal amounts can cause great harm to bees.

The webinar also presented solutions for tackling this critical issue:

• We now have evidence that stopping the use of neonics in agriculture is not associated with lower crop yields!

• Quebec in 2019 moved to a “verification of need” system with no harm to yields.

• ME, NY, NJ and NV have banned the use of neonics in lawns and gardens except for removing invasives.

Friends of Bees has been sounding the alarm about this for ten years. Maybe this new evidence can motivate us all to greater advocacy? If you are interested in protecting our native pollinators, you can read about ways to get involved with Pollinator Pathways here! 

Thank you so much to our very own Melinda Dennis for delivering a wonderful presentation about her experience with creating a pollinator garden in the turf grass bump out in front of her house.

You can view the recording of the Pollinator Garden Presentation 

(Passcode : 2#LSuKf8)

And you can view the slides that were presented here: PowerPoint Presentation

As many environmentally-minded folks like you know, invasive species are a massive threat to the biodiversity of our ecological systems. In 2023, as part of its mission to promote environmental stewardship, Watertown Community Gardens expanded its work to include combating invasive plant species threatening the local ecosystem. To date, our work has mainly focused on removing invasives on the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway. As community stewards, we invite you to help us to expand our efforts in 2024! 

Invasive species pose a significant threat to the balance in our ecosystems and have far-reaching consequences for biodiversity. These non-native plants and animals outcompete and displace native species, leading to a decline in biodiversity. Climate change has created conditions that favor the spread and establishment of invasive plant species. Likewise, the presence of invasive plants can further exacerbate the impacts of climate change. The pervasive nature of invasive species requires a proactive and concerted effort to prevent further ecological damage. 

In 2023, WCG held eight volunteer work days to work specifically on invasive plant removal and management. We had many wonderful volunteers join us and thank them wholeheartedly for their efforts! We also had the amazing support of the DPW, who picked up all the invasive plants that we removed - thank you! 

Initially, we mainly focused our efforts on addressing the massive, well-established stands of Japanese Knotweed. Knotweed is one of the most aggressive and hard-to-get-rid-of invasive plants. Our volunteers cut the knotweed stands back six times in 2023 - and we look forward to continuing this effort in 2024. During our volunteer work days, we also removed Black Swallow-wort, Bittersweet, Tree of Heaven, and garlic mustard.  You can find information about these plants on our Resources page about Invasive Species. Unfortunately, the Watertown-Greenway has an abundance of invasive species to choose from for our removal efforts! 

While it may take years to manage the well-established invasives on the Greenway, we have also started planting native plants and spreading seeds of native plants. These included milkweed, perennial sunflowers, purple coneflower, penstemon, goldenrod, and Joe Pye weed, just to name a few. Our hope is that we can start replacing the invasive plants with beautiful native plants that support our native flora and fauna. 

We are just getting started in our invasive removal efforts and we are working on defining our plans for 2024. To get us ready for our work during the growing season, we will be holding a Greenway trash pick up on March 9, 2024 from 10am to 12pm (rain date March 16). Come help us make our community more beautiful!

Make sure to sign up for the WCG newsletter and indicate you interest in volunteering to make sure you get future event announcements.

And if you have a special interest in invasive plant work and would like to contribute to our planning and leading these efforts, please reach out to us at info@watertowngardens.org. We need all the help we can get!

 - Corey Barr       WCG Board, Watertown Pollinator Pathways

Thank you to our city manager, George Proakis, for signing on for a second year of the Mayors' Monarch Pledge!  And we cannot forget our many friends at City Hall, including

• Laurel Schwab, Senior Environmental Planner
• Katie Swan, Environmental Planner/Conservation Agent
• Bob DiRico, Parks/Cemetery Supervisor
• Gideon Schreiber, Assistant Director of Planning

Here are some of our favorite parts of the 2024 Action Item list!

• Launch or maintain a public communication effort to encourage residents to plant monarch gardens at their homes or in their neighborhoods. (If you have community members who speak a language other than English, we encourage you to also communicate in that language; Champion Pledges must communicate in that language.)
• Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.
• Launch, expand, or continue an invasive species removal program that will support the re-establishment of native habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.
• Initiate or support community science (or citizen science) efforts that help monitor monarch migration and health.
• Host or support a monarch neighborhood challenge to engage neighborhoods and homeowners' associations within the community to increase awareness, support community unity around a common mission, and/or create habitat for the monarch butterfly.
• Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants in medians and public rights-of-way.
• Increase the percentage of native plants, shrubs and trees that must be used in city landscaping ordinances and encourage use of milkweed, where appropriate.

View Watertown's Community Profile here

View the report from 2023 here

Happy summer!

The Boylston Street bump out gardens are thriving with the regular rain and are full of pollinators. On a rainy day, some of the only pollinators to brave the weather are bumblebees - the fuzzy teddy bear bees. When it’s warm and sunny, you’ll see much more variety, including honeybees, metallic green sweat bees, clouded sulfur butterflies, and more.

There are many types of flowers blooming right now:

• Orange butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) - host plant for Monarch butterflies; look for black, white, and yellow striped caterpillars eating the leaves.  August is a great time to look for caterpillars, especially in the morning and evenings.
• Purple coneflower (Echinacea) - in the winter, the dried seed heads will become bird food

• Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) - attracts a variety of pollinators, including specialist bees, bumble bees, hummingbirds, and moths.
• Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) - butterflies are especially attracted to black-eyed Susans and other coneflowers because the flowers provide a platform where the butterflies can land.
• Anise hyssop (Agastache) - rub the leaves, they smell like licorice, and the towers of light purple flowers are a favorite of a variet of bees

• Blue vervain (Verbena hastata) - these tiny purple flowers are nectar-rich and attract a myriad of pollinators, including butterflies, skippers, long and short-tongued bees and others.
• Oak leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) - as the name suggests, this is hydrangea shrub has leaves which resemble those of oak trees, complementing cone-shaped flower clusters

• Daylilies - there are several varieties blooming right now - red, orange, yellow! Do you think they look like fireworks?

The gray goldenrod will begin to bloom in a few weeks. Its flowers are yellow like most goldenrods; the name refers to the gray-colored stems. Goldenrods are important food sources for pollinators out in late summer and fall.

Volunteers will be at the bump outs on September 28 from 5 until 6:30pm doing fall maintenance after flowers have bloomed, before winter sets in. If you’re interested in joining us, please sign up for the calendar event, and join the volunteering Google Group!

On Saturday, 7/22/23, we had a crew of 9 people removing invasive plant species on the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway.  This was our second time cutting down the large patches of Japanese knotweed on the stretch near Arlington Street.  Everyone had a great time, and are eager to do more of this work.  We anticipate having another event in 2 to 4 weeks.

Black swallow-wort is another invasive that has been blooming for a couple weeks and now has its distinctive seed pods.  It's really important to get these plants and seed pods in trash bags before they open up and spread further into green areas and fence lines (this is a common place to see it).

In June, we worked together with the city's Conservation Agent, Katie Swan to put together this informational document about BSW.  Check it out!  Now is a great time to learn how to identify and remove this plant.

Knotweed is being cut and left in-place to decompose because it has not yet flowered and set seed.  The BSW already has flowers and seed pods, so must be disposed of in trash bags.  Thanks to the Watertown DPW for picking them up.

We have also created a Google Groups for these volunteering activities, Watertown Pollinator Volunteers  Please consider joining the list, or sharing it with people you know.

This will be a years-long effort to get rid of and replace these tough invasive plants with native plants.  We will be back out there in the next month to get rid of as much knotweed and black swallow-wort as we can to prevent its further spread.  Over time, we will also be planting vigorous native plants to compete against the invasive plants.

I've added photos from the event to this public photo album: Pollinator Pathways - Invasive Species Removal.

Thanks to George Proakis for signing the Mayor's Monarch Pledge! taking action to help save the monarch butterfly, an iconic species whose eastern populations have declined by 90% and western populations by 99% in recent years. Watertown is committing to create habitat for the monarch butterfly and pollinators, and to educate residents about how they can make a difference at home and in their community. We join George in helping to create habitat for butterflies and other pollinators and educating residents about the importance of planting and maintaining these habitats around in public gardens around Watertown

Please join us on Wednesday, March 29th at 7pm at the Friends of Bees monthly Zoom meeting for a presentation on transforming your bump-out or planting strip (between sidewalk and street) into a pollinator garden. Melinda Dennis, a Watertown resident and member of Friends of Bees and Watertown Community Gardens (WCG), will share her beginner’s experience planting a 200 square foot bump-out with perennial flowers for attracting pollinators. 

Ellen Menounos, a Watertown resident and Environmental Planner for the city of Newton, will join us to offer her expertise in native perennials. The Watertown Department of Public Works encourages these plantings and offers useful guidelines to follow, which will be highlighted during the talk. 

This webinar is part of WCG’s mission to encourage gardening in Watertown with native plants to support our local biodiversity, including bees, birds, and other pollinators.  Planting with native plants also improves our soil, air, health, and our area’s natural beauty.

Date: March 29th 7- 8:30pm

ZOOM LINK