Garden dedicated to bees and beyond

Anythink Wright Farms dedicates pollinator garden

BY BELEN WARD BWARD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Bees and other pollinators are big deal, according to Anythink Library’s managers, so they decided to give them a place of their own.

Anthink Wright Farms in ornton celebrated thegrand opening of a new pollinator garden Aug. 8. e garden is open to every one to visit, whether they are pollinators or not “Having this pollinator garden is a really amazing opportunity for us to provide more resources along with our mission,” said Mark Fink, Anthink Libraries executive director. “It opens doors for curious minds. One of the initiatives we’re working on is trying to nd ways to help people connect with nature at the level that is comfortable for them.” e event featured guitarist Jose Francisco and cookies and fruit with other refreshments.

Bee-hind the garden e garden is located at the southeast corner of the Anthink Wright farms building facing 120th and is on 1.5 acres with over 900 plants for the bees, butter ies, birds, hummingbirds, rodents, moths and bats that use plants to pollinate. e project also built walkways going through the garden with benches and a pergola with a basalt fountain for the community of all ages to enjoy.

“We embarked on this project inspired by our resident beekeeper, Michael Biglen. We have apiaries at three of our location’s community gardens at Anythink Library Wright farms, Anythink Perl Mack, and Anythink Commerce City,” said Stacy Ledden, Anythink Libraries director of strategic partnerships. Ledden said Biglen is one of their building doctors on the facilities team and has a passion for bees. He brought beehives to several of their locations, which sparked the idea of creating the pollinator garden at the Wright Farms branch.

“Last year the Anythink Foundation and Amazon helped to raise funds to make this possible and the library contributed funds,” e park and the garden were designed by Con uence, a local landscape architecture rm, she said.

Ledden said.

Joel Hiatt, Enhancement Manager with Keesen Landscape Northern Colorado Region, designed the pollinator garden and said this supports the bees that are they’re su ering from colony collapse.

“It was just a pleasure to put in this environmentally friendly garden to help bene t our pollinators in the area, and we’re giving them the diversity to feed here instead of mono crops that are further east. Its going to help our environment and is beautiful place. I’m just really proud to be part of it,” Hiatt said.

Ledden said they dedicated this space to their former Anythink Board Trustee, Linda Wisniewski, for the time she served on the board between 2009 and 2019.

Ledden said it’s an opportunity to educate the community and host programming on the importance of pollinators because they are seeing a decrease in pollinators worldwide.

“So we invite all of those bees , butter ies and hummingbirds back to our community with the 900 plants that have been planted here as part of the garden,” Ledden said.

“It’s been a beautiful project and an excellent space for people to enjoy, re ect, work, and gather.

Glenn Moore, a retired educator visiting the garden, said he moved to ornton in 1996 into a cul de sac by Krameria Street.

“ ere were no houses around us we can listen to cows moo at night, and coyotes howling. I have seen it develop over the years, its wonderful they added the pollinator farm,” Moore said.

Lydia Ontiveros, a retired educator who lives in Wright Farms neighborhood, is a fan of the library. e garden has given her ideas.

“ ey bring in a lot of di erent classes. We can walk up to and use the library. You get to see the kids here learning a lot of educational information. We are trying to put owers in our backyard boxes for pollinators,” Ontiveros said.

Suzanne McGowan, director of customer experience, said she likes to see people sitting out in the garden when she’s coming to work.

Some people seem to be having meetings or having a little bit of solitude in the little natural area.

“I like the backdrop of our community garden. It’s just been fun. I hope it’s an experience for lot of our customers, whether they come into the library or not they can enjoy an extension of the library,” McGowan said.

“It has been a labor of love and a gift to the community. So we’re really excited to celebrate its grand opening today,” Ledden said.

“ e pollinator garden is a really great opportunity for us to be able to do that, and it adds some beauty to the area and, gives people an opportunity to sit outside and relax. Our facilities manager said he saw a little toad in our fountain this morning,” Fink said.