Watertown Pollinator Pathways is a team of volunteers that work throughout the year to maintain public pollinator gardens around the city and educate the community about ecological gardening practices.
This work is part of WCG's mission - gardening in the community, in addition to community gardens. There is limited green space in our city, so spaces of all sizes can support our pollinators. Whether you have a "hellstrip" planting area, garden, yard, or balcony, you can help build habitat and pathways for our native pollinators by providing food sources, water, shelter, and places to raise young. We are supporting not only pollinators, like bees and butterflies, but also other wildlife, including songbirds and migrating birds, including colorful warblers. Ecologically-minded landscapes contribute to the Homegrown National Park movement, which is a grassroots call-to-action to regenerate biodiversity and ecosystem function by planting native plants and creating new ecological networks.
Our efforts align with the Mayors' Monarch Pledge, which was signed on behalf of Watertown by our new City Manager, George Proakis. Click here for more info about Watertown's pledge.
Our education topics include pollinators, native plants, invasive species and removal, and other ecological gardening practices. Check out the calendar for upcoming events.
To make sure you get emails about upcoming volunteering events, please sign up for our volunteering-specific email list, linked below.
Scheduled volunteer events will posted on the Events page, and shared in our quarterly newsletter.
We will also have more spontaneous events for weeding or doing other maintenance throughout the summer. These will be shared to the Google Group email list typically with one or two days' notice.
Click here to visit the Google Group, and become a member so you receive announcements and reminders for all our volunteering events.
Mystic Charles Pollinator Pathways is a larger group with a similar mission, spanning several municipalities surrounding the Mystic and Charles Rivers. They have created a Google Map of pollinator habitat, both public and private, which anyone can add to. The map highlights the pathways that are created by nearby gardens, supporting more pollinators which cannot travel long distances for food.