The City of Morden last week heralded its official designation as a “Bee City.”
It is only the second Bee City in Manitoba, and a city representative said the recognition reflects the commitment to supporting pollinators through a range of habitat, education, and community engagement initiatives.
“We’ve always kind of been looking into how we can naturalize our areas more or provide more support of the pollinators in our area,” said Brooklin Reimer, Morden’s horticulture lead.
When they heard about the Bee City Canada program, they felt Morden “fell right in with what they stand for,” she suggested.
The City of Morden maintains four existing pollinator gardens in parks and open spaces featuring a diverse range of native plant species.
City staff are also working on expanding pollinator-friendly spaces through the establishment of additional gardens in partnership with members of the Morden and District Horticultural Society. These areas will prioritize native flowering plants, grasses, shrubs and trees that provide nectar and pollen throughout the growing season.
Other bee-friendly initiatives include having designated no-mow zones in riparian areas along the Dead Horse Creek and planting clover in downtown tree wells to help increase the availability of nectar-rich forage.
Morden also has an integrated pest management plan that emphasizes biological, cultural, and physical management so as to reduce the reliance on chemical pesticides. City workers also make use of cardboard layering in public shrub and flower beds to reduce weeds.
Other plans in the works include a woodlot extension project at Lakeside Cemetery that includes planting over 12,000 trees, 360 of which will be native saskatoon shrubs to enhance pollen availability and habitat connectivity.
“That will be really important for pollinator conservation and helping those populations,” said Reimer.
With the designation, the city now intends to be part of the Pollinator Week promotion in conjunction with Bee City Canada in mid-June.
“We would like to participate in some activities and promotions that they do as well as during Arbor Day in June. We want to host an outreach booth to promote Morden as a bee city,” said Reimer, who added their aim is to be “providing clear science-based information on the importance of pollinators and the challenges they face and just basically getting people involved in spreading information about pollinators and their benefits.”
You can learn more about the City of Morden’s efforts to support pollinators online at beecitycanada.org/bee-cities/morden.
