LAVALLETTE – Earth Day is a highlight of spring but a project involving college students, Girl Scouts and a borough business will celebrate nature all season.
As part of the Native Bloom Initiative, Lavallette now has a new garden spot. Girl Scouts, residents and volunteers recently gathered at the Happy Belly for a special planting event headed by New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) student Dayna Alemy.
Alemy serves as a volunteer with the NBI, a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring native plant species and supporting local ecosystems.
“We’re hosting this in collaboration with the Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore,” Alemy said. The event featured the planting of a pollinator garden at Happy Belly. She explained that “this garden is made up of New Jersey native plants and aims to provide vital support to pollinators such as bees, butterflies, and birds, helping to foster a healthier local environment.”
The hands-on event served as an educational experience for the local Girl Scouts. “We are thrilled to be working together on this initiative. Some of the plants we’ll be adding to the garden include: butterfly milkweed, black-eyed Susan, seaside goldenrod, Virginia saltmarsh mallow, arrowwood, and foxglove beardtongue.”
“Anything invasive we are trying to remove. That is what we are looking for,” Boy Scout Hunter McIntosh said. “It is beautiful out today. A perfect day for this.”
New Jersey cactus was one plant that volunteers of a Lavallette based pollinator project didn’t have to dig up as indigenous plants were the purpose behind project that involved the Native Bloom Initiative with help from Girl Scouts in Lavallette and Boy Scouts from northern New Jersey. (Photo by Bob Vosseller)
He worked with Alemy and William Kelly on the project. Kelly was a member of the Boy Scouts as a child and throughout high school and used those values to become the founder and president of the non-profit Native Bloom Initiative.
Alemy said he had “a big hand in helping seeing this project to completion by helping me contact local businesses and continuing conversations with Happy Belly.”
“I helped Dayna to organize the planting, but I couldn’t make it down to Lavallette that day. We’re speaking with the Happy Belly owner to hopefully plant at more locations around town, and that’s in addition to more gardening we have coming up around North Jersey,” Kelly said.
“This is my little shop,” Jennie Weeks, the owner of the Happy Belly said. “I was asked by William if I’d be interested in this and I said sure.”
“We are a group of Boy Scouts from northern New Jersey and we want to help bring back more native plant species in New Jersey. That is our goal. We are essentially trying to give more back to New Jersey and create that kind of mission we have with nature,” McIntosh said.
McIntosh added, “we are also members of a sub-group of the Boy Scouts called the Order of the Arrow and essentially their mission is all about trying to give back to the community through selfless service.”
He noted that using indigenous plans can be far less expensive for landscaping needs. “As the seasons change the garden flourishes in its own way as it adapts over time. Trying to keep green grass over the year is a hassle and a half. When you have rocks and gravel style or even a sandy environment you can’t really grow grass there.”
“With sea plants or more species catered towards New Jersey it can flourish here,” McIntosh added. “We once did a project in Newark at a small business complex.”
The NBI mission also includes educating communities on the importance of restoring native plant species. “The Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore are a local troop dedicated to empowering young girls, and this project serves as a wonderful opportunity to teach them about environmental stewardship,” Alemy added.
The local scouts from Lavallette were told not to remove the prickly cactus as they were actually New Jersey cactus and therefore a native species.
“I was more involved with the choosing of the plants. I really didn’t get involved with where they go (on the property),” Alemy said. McIntosh scoped out Week’s property and directed the seven Lavallette Third and Fourth grade Girl Scout Troop (that consisted of Brownies and Junior Troop members) and other volunteers on what and where to plant.
Picking the plants “had a lot of factors, salinity being the main one. It also gets very windy down here in the summer so it either needs to be protected from the wind or just survive in the wind.” Alemy said.
She added, “other spots may have less sunlight so we want to make sure that whichever plant can handle that.”
“The aesthetic of it is a factor too,” McIntosh added.
Lavallette Girl Scouts, members of the Native Bloom Initiative and Boy Scouts team up to plant New Jersey plants at a local business. (Photo by Bob Vosseller)
“The priority was they had to be native to New Jersey and they have to support the eco system by being a pollinator,” Alemy said.
The Girl Scouts of Lavallette put on gloves and worked for at least an hour with the other volunteers.
Alemy said, “the pollinator garden should be in full bloom by the summer and will have a great impact for the local ecosystem.”
More information about Native Bloom Initiative can be found at nativebloominitiative.org. The Girl Scouts of Jersey Shore can be reached by visiting jerseyshoregirlscouts.org
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