Cranberry Township will introduce pollinator meadows near the disc golf course at North Boundary Park. Butler Eagle file photo
CRANBERRY TWP — Meadows full of native plants will soon come to North Boundary Park in an effort to attract pollinators, decrease required maintenance efforts and create a live teaching area.
The township’s plan, which includes partnerships from organizations such as the Audobon Society, will convert four grassy meadow areas near the disc golf course in North Boundary Park into “pollinator meadows" and make upgrades to the existing butterfly area.
Ron Henshaw, Cranberry’s director of planning and development services, said the proposal to create pollinator meadows originally came from the township’s environmental advisory committee.
“Everyone — especially the EAC — knows the importance of pollinators and so forth, not just in our community but in the world as a whole,” Henshaw said. “So they (the committee) worked hard on this idea.”
Henshaw said the committee spoke with those involved in organizing disc golf about the pollinator idea, adding that the organizers are happy with the plans.
In addition to the Audobon Society, the township will partner with the Seneca Valley School District, the Southern Butler County Garden Club and FirstEnergy, with the latter donating the seeds necessary to start the pollinator meadows.
Fred Peterson, a Seneca Valley director who also serves on the environmental committee, said the addition of a pollinator area will create three distinct teaching areas for Seneca students between the different types of ecosystems.
“The key word in all this is education,” Peterson said. “We obviously want to create a pollinator area for the purpose of keeping the bees, the butterflies, the hummingbirds happy, but we also want to create something for the purpose of teaching the community.”
The process for converting the grassy areas into pollinator meadows will begin in the fall, according to Henshaw, with it being necessary to kill the grass in the fall before planting the native plant seeds in the spring.
