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HYANNIS – Mini fields of cool greens, bright reds and yellows, rich browns, soft pinks and purples, all buzzing with bees and butterflies adorn the Main Street sidewalk in downtown Hyannis.
This spring, the Hyannis Main Street Business Improvement District planted more than 140 plants in addition to creating several small gardens about a mile off Yarmouth Road near Cape Cod Hospital. West End Rotary as part of the Cape Cod Pollinator Pathways initiative.
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The project was led by Elizabeth Wurfbein, director of the Hyannis Business Improvement District, and Mary Myrick, who manages social media for the district.
According to Wurfbein, the goal is to “create a more environmentally friendly way to beautify the urban environment.”
However, it is more than just planting beautiful flowers.
“It’s all about the birds and the bees,” said Wurfbein, and how they, along with native pollinating plants, protect and improve the overall environment.
The project is being funded by the Hyannis Main Street Business Improvement District through money that property owners along Main Street pay the district quarterly, Wurfbein said.
Plantations and gardens created on the main road
The entire project, including 140 plantings, several gardens along the route and maintenance, cost about $15,000.
The idea was born last year at the annual hydrangea festival in Orleans.
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Wuerfbein and Myrick visited the garden of Gary Bowden, a master gardener who is an active member of the Orleans Improvement Association, Cape Cod Master Gardeners and the Nauset Garden Club.
Bowden said the two women attended a talk he gave about pollination pathways and integrating native pollinators into their native areas.
“It’s the cycle of life. We need plants for insects and birds and we want the insects to pollinate the plants, he said. “It’s a natural way to protect the environment.”
In addition, the native plants used in the Pollinator Pathways project require very little water, even less fertilizer, and bloom in different seasons in the spring and summer, allowing plant life to continue throughout the seasons.
Welcoming monarch butterflies
Another benefit is for monarch butterflies, Bowden said, whose populations are in sharp decline nationwide.
One of the native plants used in the Pollinating Pathways project is common milkweed, a major food source for the monarch butterfly.
“So we’re bringing back the monarch butterfly,” Bowden said.
Wuerfbein and Myrick were so impressed with Bowden’s approach that they wanted to replicate the effort in Hyannis.
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They hired the services of CL Fornari, who is a self-described “gardening geek” and hosts a weekly radio show on WXTK radio called “Gardening Line” and has written eight books about gardening, some of them specifically about gardening on Cape Cod.
Fornari, also known as the “Garden Lady on Cape Cod,” advises Wuerfbein and Myrick on which native plants to use that “support the natural wildlife in the area” and “look good before and after flowering.” .
Hyannis Main Street has selected 10 plants to be used in the Pollinator Pathways containers. They include, by their common names, bluestar, butterfly weed, mountain mint, thread-leaf ironweed (also known as iron butterfly), purple flower, switchgrass, goldlocks rocks, sweet potato vine, and two types of zinnia.
So the Hyannis Main Street Business Improvement District bought plants from country gardens and got to work.
Pollination routes are being added across the Cape.
Planting begins in late May, and the plants are at their peak for the hydrangea festival in mid-July, and Hyannis has been able to attract many garden visitors, Wurfbein said.
A number of master gardeners have attended and word is spreading fast about creating more pollination routes.
Bowden said last year the Pollinator Trails initiative was launched in five Cape Cod towns: Orleans, Chatham, Harwich, Brewster and Dennis.
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“We now have organizations from Bourne, Hyannis, Barnstable, West Dennis, Wellfleet and Sandwich,” he said. We have now reached Wellfleet from Bourne.
Additionally, anyone interested in starting a pollinator trail garden in their backyard can register on the organization’s website.
“We’re trying to get people to appreciate this and register on our website. We started with less than 10 and now we have over 100 gardens registered,” Bowden said.
And this has created a veritable pollination trail on Cape Cod.
Wurfbein and Myrick were thrilled with the results in Hyannis, and so was the community.
Public opinion is positive.
Marty Brummell, president and CEO of the Greater Hyannis Chamber of Commerce, said he’s received a lot of comments from tourists about how Main Street looks and how the plants have enhanced everything.
“It’s great to see people who care about the community,” he said.
“People see us working on the gardens and we have good things to say about them. It’s good for community morale,” said Wurfbein. “Whenever we’re on the road, people tell us something about it — ‘The flowers are beautiful, it’s so beautiful and it looks like a good job.’ “
And swinging among the plants and walking in the soil is being given a greater purpose.
To learn more, contact pollinatorpathwaycapecod@gmail.com.
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