By Morgan Pilz, Staff Writer

(Jan. 30, 2020) Verena Chase from Assateague Coastal Trust’s Coast Kids program asked for an received the Berlin mayor and town council’s permission to expand the Henry Park Pollinator Garden.

By Morgan Pilz
The Berlin mayor and town council approved a 9×25 feet expansion of the Henry Park Pollinator Garden in Berlin on Monday, Jan. 27.

Chase, on Monday, asked for an additional 9-foot-by-25-foot expansion of the current pollinator garden located northwest of the playground and basketball court. The addition will be used as both a pollinator and rainwater collection garden.

“It’s a very wet spot,” Chase said, indicating that this slice of the property is covered in muddy water.

A pollinator garden, as the name would suggest, is a garden that is planted predominately with flowers that provide nectar or pollen for a wide range of pollinating insects.

“We would like to plant a little more than 100 perennial plants, two or three shrubs like beautyberry or Iva frutescens,” Chase said. “Then, we would like to put a border of river rocks around the whole garden to make it easier for the mowers to see where the edges are.”

Some of the flowers Chase and her team would like to plant include beebalm, blueflag iris, cardinals, goldenrod, great blue lobelia, Joe Pye weed, mountain mint, spiderwort, summer phlox, swamp milkweed and turtlehead.

There are also plans to plant mulch and install a sign indicating what the pollinator garden is and why it is important.

Chase also added there will be no costs to the town regarding the installation or funding of the garden, as she applied for the money to create it from a Keep Maryland Beautiful grant. She expects to hear the results of the application by March.

Should she receive the grant, planting will begin in May. However, she does request that the town of Berlin assist in long-term maintenance of the garden.