LaSalle Public Library receives wildflowers grant

LASALLE – The LaSalle Public Library has received funding and thousands of native wildflower seed packets to create “Pollinator Pathways,” that will help connect wild public lands, like state parks, with residential landscapes and community gardens to support the crucial role of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.
The #PlantWildflowers Initiative grant award is supported by Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Tangled Bank Studios, PBS Nature, World Wildlife Fund and other whose One Square Foot Initiative aims to replant one billion square feet of grasslands with native wildflowers.
The Library was one of fifty libraries selected nationwide, from more than 300 applicants. In addition to the monetary award, the Library will receive seed packets of native wildflowers specific to the Midwest region for free public distribution, along with informational and planting materials.
The Library is working with the University of Illinois Extension Office Master Gardener, Natalie Martin, to locate area sites for community plantings, and to host in-person, outdoor, seed distribution and planting events for both community and individual sites. Additionally, the Library and the Master Gardener will host virtual events, as well as in-person, outdoor BioBlitz events, at which planters will enjoy and document the growth of their plantings using the iNaturalist app.
The Library will also host a virtual screening of PBS Nature’s My Garden of a Thousand Bees, a film that follows wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn, who, during the pandemic lockdown, turns his lenses on the surprising and spectacular bees living in his own urban garden in Bristol, England.
Interested adult and youth community groups, schools, other organizations, individuals and families, who would like to participate in this wildflower planting project, should contact the Library at (815)223-2341 by mid-March. “Pollinator Pathways,” will host its first event in early-April.