In 2026, Humboldt Park Friends will be greatly expanding the pollinator garden project we launched this summer. The new pollinators will be planted along the SSW area of the lagoon, promising to improve habitat, support the biodiversity and health of the lagoon, and bring beauty for passersby to enjoy. We are grateful to Milwaukee County Park leaders for their support and approval of our plan.
Our initial garden was planted in June of this year, with plants purchased from Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District plant sale, a local nursery, and a group of area artists who collected seeds the previous fall.
The Milwaukee Artists group was proud to provide plants for and help install the pollinator garden in front of the pavilion building this year. Over a dozen local artists worked together to help gather and sort seeds from local native plants, grow and care for seedlings, and worked with the Humboldt Park Friends Pollinator Committee through planning and planting! We’re delighted to have seen many beautiful blooms and a wide variety of pollinator species in the garden just in this first season, and we look forward to seeing how it continues to grow and thrive in the coming summers!
When we see children from Parkside Elementary School and area Montessori schools visiting the garden, their curiosity and delight are palpable. Many point with the enthusiastic energy of discovery at the Monarchs and moths and scores of bees, both large and small. Their joyful expressions are immediate returns on our investment of hours of planning, scaling, ordering, planting, and maintaining the garden. The longer lasting returns, however, are felt in the work that these insects do long after the children have gone home.
We support biodiversity in the environment by planting a large number of native pollinator plants, such as milkweed, coneflower, liatris lobelia, and many more. They attract thousands of pollinators such as butterflies, birds, hummingbirds, and beetles. Every day in mid-summer, hundreds of butterflies and bees were busy doing their jobs in our native pollinator garden in front of the Humboldt Park Pavilion.
Our new garden along the lagoon is even more ambitious; planning is underway for us to break ground in five months. In the meantime, we will host an educational event as part of our Humboldt in Harmony series in the pavilion on January 20th at 7:00 PM. You can learn how to enjoy pollinators in your own home gardens. Humboldt Park Friends, along with other generous donors, provide the funds to make these events and the pollinator gardens possible.
Please join us in the work with a generous year-end gift.
I am deeply committed to keeping our parks as a treasure for all to enjoy. Thank you to everyone connected to Humboldt Park for maintaining, developing, strategizing and enhancing our experience of nature. It adds joy to have this space accessible to all.
