- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And the other pollinators.
And the plants.
We were glad to see that Melissa "Missy" Borel, program manager of the California Center for Urban Horticulture at UC Davis, recently received a much deserved honor for her work in making the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven a reality.
Borel, recipient of a 2011 Distinguished Citation for Excellence from the UC Davis Staff Assembly, drew a round of applause at the awards reception at the home of Chancellor Linda Katehi. Campuswide, only two other individuals--and two teams--received a Distinguished Citation for Excellence. Their names will be engraved on a perpetual plaque at the Walter A. Buehler Alumni and Visitors' Center.
Borel's award is closely linked to the haven, a half-acre bee friendly demonstration garden planted next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus. The haven is is a year-around food source for the Laidlaw bees and other pollinators, an educational resource for visitors, and a research garden.
Borel coordinated the design competition, helped develop the garden through donations and an outreach program, and recruited and coordinated additional campus programs to add educational and art content to the garden.
A product of UC Davis (bachelor's degree in plant sciences and master’s degree in horticulture and agronomy), Borel meshed with five distinct campus units and three extra agencies during the design and building phases of the garden. More than 80 percent of the garden was installed with donated materials.
Borel offered her expertise on plants, asked for donations from a network of friends and colleagues in the horticulture industry, granted news media interviews, and helped with the official opening of the garden on Sept. 11, 2010.
Borel continues to be actively involved; you can usually find her out there every Friday morning tending the garden and working side by side with a corps of other dedicated volunteers.
And Missy Borel would be the first to tell you that the garden is the work of many people--administrators, faculty, staff, donors and volunteers.
The garden, installed under the watch of Bohart Museum of Entomology director and entomology professor Lynn Kimsey, then interim chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, has become a campus destination where visitors learn about bees and pollinator landscaping and can admire the art (a six-foot-long bee sculpture, beehive art, and mosaic of native bees).
What was once a field of nasty weeds is now a field of pollinator dreams. When you walk through the garden or enjoy lunch at a picnic table, you become very aware of the plight of the bees--and the beauty of the garden. The garden is a gift to UC Davis Department of Entomology, but more than that, it's a gift to the university, to the surrounding communities, and to all of us who care about what's happening to the bees.
A tip of the gardening hat to Missy Borel!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
What the world needs now is "love, sweet love" and...more ladybugs.
Ladybeetles are our friends. They gobble up aphids and other pests in our garden, and then look around for more. They have insatiable appetites.
Last Friday morning, as volunteers worked in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre bee friendly garden at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, the artichoke plants stirred.
Two ladybugs were in the midst of making more ladybugs.
Yes! We need more ladybugs.
During the grand opening celebration of the haven on Sept. 11, we spotted a web-weaving spider eating a ladybug.
One ladybug gone.
But many more to come.
Volunteers interesting in tending the plants--and maybe spotting a few ladybugs, as well as honey bees, butterflies, dragonflies, sweat bees, praying mantids and a variety of other insects in the garden--can show up at the haven on Fridays at 8:30 a.m.
Melissa "Missy" Borel, program manager of the California Center for Urban Horticulture, UC Davis, and one of the key persons involved in the development of the garden, is coordinating the volunteers. She can be reached at mjborel@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-6642.
And oh, if you like to capture images of plant and animal life inside the garden, don't forget your camera.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
One of the many enduring features of the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the University of California, Davis, is the inclusion of fruit trees, garden vegetables and herbs, and plants bearing such delicacies as strawberries, raspberries, Oregon grape and elderberry.
The half-acre bee friendly garden, planted last fall next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the UC Davis central campus, will be dedicated at a public celebration on Saturday, Sept. 11.
Plans are now under way for the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. event. The garden, a gift to the UC Davis Department of Entomology, is designed to be a year-around food source for honey bees and other pollinators, especially the bees on the Laidlaw facility grounds.
And, the garden is scheduled to be a rich educational experience for visitors, who can learn the importance of pollinators, and glean ideas for their own gardens.
So far, the garden has produced almonds (a resident almond tree), strawberries, artichokes, cabbage, and herbs (basil, parsley, onion and mint). Fruit trees will one day yield apples, plums and persimmons.
That's in addition to the scores of other bee friendly plants, including tower of jewels, salvia, seaside daisy, and crimson clover.
"As visitors travel through Honey Bee Haven, they encounter a seasonal variety of blooming native and ornamental plants and fruit trees, which, together, provide a year-round food source for the honey bees," wrote the winning design team from Sausalito (landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki).
"Connecting each garden is a series of trails, each thematically named to support the interpretive storyline," they wrote. "Trellises define the entryways to most gardens and reinforce the passage to the next space."
We're often asked: Can we see the design plan? Can we download it?
Yes, it's online on the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility website. Here's the page housing the design and here's the direct link to the PDF.