Bexley Recreation & Parks Department
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Bexley's Love Your Alley SU 21

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Love Your Alley is about collaboration, sustainability, creativity and beauty. It is transforming our underutilized alleys into extended living space for everyone to enjoy, while creating our own Homegrown National Park in Bexley with native plants that support our pollinators and biodiversity. These events and speakers are scheduled throughout the month of May to help participants learn about planting native plants, enhancing gardens for pollinators, and much more! Registration is required and ends 3 hours prior to the start of the event. For more information on the Love Your Alley Program, please visit the City website.

5/1 Saturday 11:00am-12:00pm (Ages 13+)
How Reducing Your Lawn and Planting Native Plants, Trees and Shrubs Will Help Our Endangered Planet @ Jeffrey Park Memorial Shelter House
For most of the millions of years our planet has existed, humans were in balance with all the other parts of our ecosystem and nature could take care of itself. Now, as the world population is approaching 8 billion people, and our earth has been logged, plowed, tiled, paved, drained and otherwise developed, our ecosystem is broken. Alarming reports of species on the brink of extinction or at greatly reduced numbers here in the US and around the world are becoming more common. 
*All attendees will receive native plants for their gardens!
Speaker: Joanne Dole has been a Master Gardener for 28 years. She gardens on a third acre suburban lot that was a "lawn desert" eleven years ago (lawn and a taxus foundation hedge). Only about a quarter of the lawn remains, and in its place is a large organic vegetable garden, native plants and trees and a rain garden.

5/2 Sunday 7:00p-8:30p (Ages 13+)
Doug Tallamy: Nature’s Best Hope (Zoom)
Recent headlines about global insect declines and three billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that sustain us.  Such losses are not an option if we wish to continue our current standard of living on Planet Earth. The good news is that none of this is inevitable. Tallamy will discuss simple steps that each of us can- and must- take to reverse declining biodiversity and will explain why we, ourselves, are nature’s best hope. 
Speaker: Doug Tallamy is the T.A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 104 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 40 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His book Bringing Nature Home was published by Timber Press in 2007 and was awarded the 2008 Silver Medal by the Garden Writers’ Association. The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke, was published in 2014; Nature’s Best Hope, a New York Times Best Seller, was released in February 2020, and his latest book The Nature of Oaks was released by Timber Press in March 2021. Among his awards are the Garden Club of America Margaret Douglas Medal for Conservation and the Tom Dodd, Jr. Award of Excellence, the 2018 AHS B.Y. Morrison Communication Award and the 2019 Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award.

5/6 Thursday 7:00pm-8:00 pm (All Ages)
Backyard Bugs: I Wanted Songbirds and Found Insects (Zoom)
Come join us for a photo presentation! We’ve been growing native plants at our home since 2016. Initially I wanted to increase the number of songbirds in our landscape which lead to the necessity of increasing insects. Prior to growing native plants, I had no interest in bugs. Now I am that weird guy that can be seen in my front yard nearly every day taking macro photos of bugs. Come check out these unique aliens that we share the land with. We’ll take a close up view of the variety of insects and arachnids that live in our Central Ohio gardens and some of the plants they need in order to contribute to the ecosystem. 
Speaker: Kevin Doenges is an amateur naturalist with an interest in native plants and the tiny creatures that eat and live upon those plants. When he is not enjoying time with his family, or creating a dazzling excel spreadsheet for work, he is often found crawling through his garden documenting the many plants, insects, and arachnids.

5/13 Thursday 7:00pm-8:00pm (Ages 13+)
Native Plants in the Residential Landscape (Zoom)
Adding native plants to your landscape provides long-term beauty AND benefits for you and your community! Reduce your dependency on petroleum-based garden products and time-consuming and often repetitive chores like mowing or watering. By providing habitat and food for native wildlife (from beetles to birds and beyond), native plants help link our homes to our unique regional ecosystem. Topics covered include:Understand what defines a native plan:

Know how to choose appropriate native plants for your yard
Acquire and install native plants in your yard!

Speaker: Tisa Watts, a garden educator and public speaker with 20 years of experience, has a degree in Horticulture and Landscape Design. She is the founder of the Columbus Garden School (CGS), which offers year-round workshops on gardening, homesteading, home maintenance, and crafting topics. Located on two acres in Columbus, OH, CGS has a 1000 sq. ft. demonstration garden, native trees and shrubs, a small prairie, and honey bee hives. columbusgardenschool.com

5/15 Saturday 1:00pm (Ages 13+)
Gardening for Butterflies @ South Bexley Community Gardens
Learn about specific host plants for caterpillars and nectar source plants for the adults.  Butterfly gardens do not need to be large but do need to be colorful, sunny, and sheltered from strong winds.  Once established, your butterfly garden may attract other nectar-feeding animals (i.e. hummingbirds, honeybees, bumblebees, and moths).  If you build it, they will come! 
Speaker: Margaret Harriman and her husband Jeff, are co-coordinators of both Bexley Community Gardens since 2018. Since 2014, Margaret has been both a Bexley Community Gardener and Franklin County Master Gardener. Margaret has served on the Franklin County Master Gardener Leadership Team since 2015. She was presented with a 2019 Franklin County Master Gardener of the Year Award.

5/19 Wednesday 7:00pm-8:00pm (Ages 13+)
Eco-Friend or Eco Foe: How to Create an Eco-Paradise in Suburbia (Zoom)
What makes a garden “eco-friendly” or “eco-hostile”? How can we become better hosts to backyard wildlife -- what do our garden guests need? Let’s talk about how to provide:

Nutritious food and access to waste
A variety of habitat options
Avoiding garden practices that may endanger wildlife
A safe and welcoming place for wildlife to visit

Speaker: Tisa Watts, a garden educator and public speaker with 20 years of experience, has a degree in Horticulture and Landscape Design. She is the founder of the Columbus Garden School (CGS), which offers year-round workshops on gardening, homesteading, home maintenance, and crafting topics. Located on two acres in Columbus, OH, CGS has a 1000 sq. ft. demonstration garden, native trees and shrubs, a small prairie, and honey bee hives. columbusgardenschool.com


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