After months of research and planning, trial and error, the students from the John Winthrop Middle School (JWMS) Lego Robotics club successfully installed a pollinator garden at Deep River Farms on June 8. Designed to appeal to pollinating insects, it’s also laid out to look good from above, which will reap rewards when students from the high school get drone photos late in the season.

“We started [the Lego Robotics team] in September [2016], and by December or January we knew this was happening,” said Barbara Nidzgorski, advisor to the Lego Robotics Club and other young scholars programs in the Region 4 schools. “We knew it would be a long process. We planted mostly annuals, so these have to be planted every year. It will be an ongoing project. We’ll start seeds here every year.”

Marissa Mathews, farmer and co-owner at Deep River Farms, was impressed with the work done by the students.

“We have an interest in including education programs at the farm,” said Mathews. “The kids got interested in how to help the bees find food after a visit to the farm’s beehives in winter, and that was sort of the start of this whole plan.”

“They helped put in a rock-formation butterfly and then planted it so that the colors will become the butterfly when in bloom. The main takeaway from this was the importance of pollinators, especially honeybees,” Mathews said. “It’s gorgeous.”

“It was awesome,” Nidzgorski said of the process.

“Awesome” doesn’t mean it wasn’t without challenges, however.

“One of the students, Aurora [Courcy], had gone over to Riggio’s Garden Center back in January or February, and they gave us packs of seeds. The students looked up how to seed them in egg cartons, but that didn’t work—and my sister, who is a master-gardener said not to use those because there isn’t enough room for the roots. So we used one of the tiers of the seed starter system at the [JWMS] Farm.”

That wasn’t the end of the setbacks.

“Those took, but they forgot to Saran Wrap them, which creates mini-greenhouse conditions. So then we borrowed another seed starter from the Science Department, set it up in my area, set the lamps, and tried again. So we had a couple of false starts.

“They planted hundreds of seeds, had them on a timer. The kids did all of the research,” continued Nidzgorski. “Three weeks ago we started putting them outside. We got some pretty strong plants—the majority of the garden are plants started from seed.”

Eleven of the 20 students in the club who could attend spent several hours after school preparing the area and planting—with a little help from Deep River Garden Club member Lori Gregan and local landscape designer Sarah Burrill-Manco of Green Space Garden Design.

“Lori was our fairy godmother. She came over and shepherded us through everything, gave us a tour of the farm to show us how everything was going to look, showed us how to plant things according to size,” said Nidzgorski. “And Sarah helped to lay out the butterfly design.”

“I helped a little bit, but they had done quite a bit on their own,” said Burrill-Manco. “I was extremely impressed that they came up with this concept on their own, that they wanted to help the bees and help solve a problem. I was also impressed with research and work they did to plan it. I reviewed plant list and plan, [and] helped reduce it and make some changes because they had some plants that would attract bees, but wouldn’t be hardy in this zone, and I gave them some input on how to lay out the design, but they really did so much work on their own.”

Now that the garden was planted, there is a plan for the high school to fly its drone above it to take a picture, so the shape and colors can be seen from above. Deep River Farms will take care of the watering, but this will remain a legacy project for these students throughout their middle and high school careers.

“I’m extremely impressed at the level of interest, passion, research, and follow up, and their care and seeding of the plants,” said Mathews. “It’s tremendous work for a really good cause.”