- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you plant it, they will come—the pollinators as well as members of the UC Davis campus community.
As of Tuesday morning, Nov. 3, the large concrete planter at the main entrance to Briggs Hall is thriving with bee friendly plants, including ceanothus, rosemary, evergreen currant, salvias, seaside daisy, snowberry, gum plant, California buckwheat, California fuschia and California goldenrod.
“The Campus Grounds removed the existing plants to allow us to do this,” said Christine Casey, staff director of the department's Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road. Garden volunteers Sarah Dohle, Sky Johnson, Finnegan Pitchford, Betty Warne, Rick Williams, and Sharon Kirkpatrick comprised the team that completed the project.
Casey credited Skip Mezger, campus landscape architect, and Cary Avery, associate director, Campus Planning and Community Resources, for approvals and help with logistics. She and Ellen Zagory, director of horticulture for the UC Davis Arboretum, collaborated on the plant selection.
The Arboretum also donated the California goldenrod, “Cascade Creek.” Other plants were purchased with Häagen-Dazs funds.
The plant list is online at http://hhbhgarden.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Briggs-Hall-Pollinator-Garden-plant-list-and-plan.pdf. The chart indicates the botanical name, common name, family name, sun/shade exposure, flowering period and flower color.