By Barbara Hadley Smith, The Garden Club of Frankfort
The area around Thorn Hill Education Center has been blooming this summer and fall, and it is all due to the action of a diverse group of volunteers.
It started in 2023 when Eddie Fowler won an environmental award from The Garden Club of Frankfort for the community gardens he oversees. At the presentation of the awards, Fowler mentioned to club member Betsy Kennedy that he would like to start a pollinator garden at the Thorn Hill Education Center.
A pollinator garden includes plants designed to attract and support pollinators, including bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.
Fowler’s vision progressed when Karen Nance, garden club president, told Kennedy that Plant America grants were available from the National Garden Club.
“We applied and we won,” Kennedy said. “The grant is for $2,000 with another $1,000 match from us.”
The selected site was an abandoned garden on the Thorn Hill property. The original garden had been created in memory of Bobby Wulf, who had been associated with Thorn Hill.
Another positive development for the creation of the pollinator garden was the relocation of the Wanda Joyce Robinson Foundation (WJRF) to Thorn Hill. On the staff is Trina Peiffer who serves as the mentor match specialist for the organization and is an avid gardener. She soon began to pull weeds from the abandoned garden and nurse the surviving plants back to health.
“In that dead time when folks were preparing for the spring, Trina and Eddie worked diligently on preparation of the site and eradication of invasives, especially bush honeysuckle,” Kennedy said.
“I absolutely love to garden,” Peiffer said. “My office is in the basement of the building, so whenever I have breaks, I can come outside and weed. Once the area was cleared, we mulched the area with wood chips left over from the community garden.”
Once the site was prepared and the check from Plant America arrived, the volunteers got busy.
Trees left from the Earth Day Bradford Pear Exchange were donated and planted. Franklin County 4H donated plants. Garden club members contributed a sizeable donation of divided plants from their gardens.
Alicia Bosela, owner of Ironwood Nursery in Waddy, provided advice about what plants to purchase, as did her friend and landscape architect, Suzette White. Andrea Wilson Mueller, of Inside Out Design in Frankfort, was also a helpful source.
Garden club members, Mary Jacobs and Denise Boebinger brought 4H participants to help with planting, and children in the WJRF program joined them.
“It is a wonderful collaboration,” Kennedy said.
“With the wet spring we had, the trees, bushes, and perennial and annual flowers thrived,” Peiffer, who can list the wide varieties of trees and plants that populate the hillside, as well as the bees, butterflies and (good) wasps that visit the garden, said.
A “Reveal Day” will be scheduled in June 2025 on National Pollinator Day. The community will be invited.
“By then, we will have added a bench donated by me, an arbor built with cedar donated by MacKenzie Preece, and a pollinator watering area where butterflies can get hydrated and have room to dry their wings,” Kennedy said.
“And, eventually, we want to have picnic tables under the trees where people can relax and enjoy the respite that nature provides,” Peiffer said.
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