Did you know that half of Vermont’s bumble bees are endangered, or that once common species like bats, butterflies, and nighthawks are disappearing from the Northeast Kingdom due to pesticides and the loss of native wildflower meadows and shrubland? Losing our pollinators and birds will cause a loss in berry, fruit, and squash crops and devastation to our local ecosystem.

On Town Meeting Day, 2024, the citizens of Greensboro voted to declare Greensboro a ‘pollinator-friendly town’ by encouraging native plants and discouraging pesticide use. Around the same time, a group of local future-minded gardeners, conservationists, and others interested in helping our ecosystem created the Greensboro Wildlife/Pollinator Working Group, now called Pollinator-Friendly Greensboro.

Pollinator-Friendly Greensboro is a community group working to help Greensboro become a National Wildlife Federation-certified Community Wildlife Habitat, through the creation of wildlife gardens and through the linking of these gardens by Pollinator Pathways — corridors of conserved meadowlands, pollinator gardens, and wildlife-friendly farms that allow pollinators to move safely throughout our communities. Our broader goal is to make Greensboro a more biodiverse, beautiful, and sustainable place. The Greensboro Association most recently supported the planting of a Pollinator Garden at the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail Trailhead.

You can help us by phasing out pesticides from your lawns, gardens, and farms, creating native plant gardens for pollinators and other wildlife, and connecting them with corridors of wildland and wildlife gardens.

For further information or to join Pollinator-Friendly Greensboro, please write us at greensboropollinators@gmail.com or check out our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/greensboro.pollinators.

A few resources:

How to Garden for Wildlife (by NWF): https://www.nwf.org/Home/Garden-for-Wildlife

Pollinator Pathways Program:   https://www.pollinator-pathway.org/