PRESENTATION
Margery Winters
Margery is Asst director at the Roaring Brook Nature Center where she manages the native plant garden. She Chairs the Simsbury Inland Wetland Conservation Commission, President of the Simsbury Land Trust, serves on the Simsbury Open Space Committee and is involved in the Pollinator’s Pathways Initiative. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in geography and geology from Miami University in addition she has a Master’s Degree From Queens University in Canada.
Margery gave a very interesting and informative presentation. She presented a couple of main themes. She emphasized the importance of pollinators as many species require them and hopes that all of us have or will plant pollinator gardens. A major concern is that we are loosing a lot of important insect species which in turn can cause the loss of other plant and animal species that depend upon them.
CT has over 300 species of native Bees. A key point that she made was that native insects grew up with native plants, which attract and feed native species. Imported plants do not feed the native insects and the seeds and berries that they produce do not feed the birds and animals that are native to our area.
What makes life difficult for the bees to do what we need them to do. Well it is us!
Everything is interconnected in ways we don't even consider. We all love song birds but....
Why is this important? Because caterpillars are baby bird food and
What can we do? The speaker is encouraging participation in the development of a pollinator pathway to connect the various green areas. She is also hoping we will do less with lawn and more with native flowering plants, shrubs, and trees.
To connect our various lawns, gardens and opens space together. We can have a home grown national park. In the USA, we have 40 million acres of lawn, the size of New England. If we cut the size of our lawns in half and planted what, it would leave an area larger than all of the national parks in the lower 48 states to. Think of all we can do together to help.