Kids get busy with the buzz about pollinators

By Mary Fran McClure
WSU Chelan/Douglas County Master Gardener
June 9, 2022


Two children and art project.
Kids concentrate on painting during a previous family day in the Community Education Garden. This year’s family day will take place June 18 and will include six activity stations to educate kids about pollinators. – Provided photo/Mary Fran McClure

Mary Fran McClure
Mary Fran McClure – WSU Extension Chelan/Douglas County Master Gardener – photo by Don Seabrook, Wenatchee World

Kids, flowers, fun in the garden — a great recipe for June activities at the 3rd Saturday in the Garden event planned for 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 18. It’s free.

Bring your kids to enjoy the garden, having fun while learning about pollinators at WSU Chelan/Douglas Master Gardeners’ Community Education Garden on the northwest corner of Springwater and Western avenues in Wenatchee.

Adults without kids are welcome. Stroll around the garden in its spring beauty, bring questions to the diagnostics table and buy garden-related items at the foundation table that supports local Master Gardener projects.

Six kid-friendly stations will be scattered around the garden, each with an element of fun as well as a bit of learning to appreciate why and how pollinators are so important in our lives. A Master Gardener committee has planned and will oversee these stations:

    • Flower Photos: Kids (and parents) can have their photo taken framed by a large sunflower. Bring your cell phone or camera and Casey Leigh and Linda Morse will take photos of your smiling sunflower face.
    • Busy Bee: Puppeteer Kathi Scheibner presents an educational bee pollinator puppet show explaining in a fun way the various parts of a flower and how pollination works.
    • Wooden Flower Painting: Nicole Parks will guide kids in painting a wooden flower cut out that they can take home.
    • Pollinator Restaurant: Tara Dearrieta welcome kids to her pollinator restaurant — not to eat, but a fun project of matching pollinators with the specific plant nectars each prefer. Kids will learn about how color, bloom time, smell and petal size all make a difference in attracting certain pollinators.
    • Butterflies and Moths: Paul Bergman has an interesting kid-level presentation of the differences between butterflies and moths so you can spot which is which in your own garden.
    • Bugs, Birds and Bats: Cindy Luksus will talk about other pollinators that we don’t normally think of that are valuable for pollination — beyond our typical concept of bees, butterflies and moths.

For more information, phone the WSU Extension office at (509) 667-6540 weekdays, and before noon on Fridays.

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