Florissant Community Garden Adds Pollinator Sculpture

Almost three months after the dedication of the Florissant Community Garden, the garden has added one of many components--a sculpture.

This past weekend, the students of the Florissant Community Garden and Pollinators, Art, Urban Agriculture, Society, Environment Project installed a garden, which was a required component for its design.

The 3.5-acre site sits next to the Florissant Old Town Partners office along St. Charles Street and is a $200,000 urban garden project that is a joint program between Saint Louis Zoo,National Museums of Keyna and Tohono Chui Park in Tucson, AZ. The project will allow for the design and implementation of pollinator gardens and habitat sculptures to be placed in the Florissant garden.

The students had the challenge to develop a sculpture that would draw pollinators to the garden and pollinate the garden’s vegetables. The sculpture also had to be composed of materials designated for trash or recycling and use those materials to create a bee habitat.

That challenge was taken and met with the new sculpture.

The flower sculpture will now have space as a nesting habitat for Missouri twig and tunnel nesting bees. It could also attract mason bees, leafcutter bees, cellophane bees and resin bees.

The sculpture will also have native prairie plants that will have pollen and nectar and draw other pollinators to the garden.

Non-toxic materials were used in the construction of the sculpture to protect the bees that might be sensitive to chemicals.

Ed Spevak, curator of invertebrates at the Saint Louis Zoo and director of the Zoo’s WildCare Institute Center for Native Pollinator Conservation, unveiled the site conceptual plan in April for the garden, which will include a prairie habitat, a wildflower walk, historic and native American gardens, sculpture, an orchard and plants that will attract pollinators, such as bees.