The 50th annual Great Plains conference was held on April 8-10 in Lincoln, and a poster session was held at the Great Plains Art Museum. Nebraska Extension Master Gardener Laurie Zitterkopf and Scotts Bluff County 4-H members presented a poster on a service project they will be performing this spring to introduce a pollinator garden at the Scotts Bluff County Administration Building in Gering, Neb.
“Mike (Zitterkopf) and I were able to transport the display and poster to the conference,” Laurie Zitterkopf said. Three of the 4-H project members from Scottsbluff, Hunter, Brooklyn, and Gage Creech, joined her at the conference. “Our 4-H youth attended to answer questions from the attendees. They had wonderful interest in the project and did very well presenting.”
Zitterkopf and the 4-Her’s used guidelines for native landscape design from the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum. The team will create a garden that focuses on the larval (caterpillar) stage of the butterfly’s life cycle. They also chose host plants for butterflies of Scotts Bluff County, as listed on the Nebraska Lepidoptera, 89 Species, website. “With our research of the chosen butterflies, we have already learned that the Icaricia shasta, Shasta Blue, takes two years to complete its life cycle.”
The garden will have signage highlighting the featured butterflies and the host plants needed for these insects to complete their life cycle. “We want to show with our educational sign and our garden how we can bring the rich landscape of the Great Plains into our living spaces.”
The 4-H youth were approached by a number of attendees commenting on their presentation and project. “Dr. Larkin Powell, Director of the School of Natural Resources, asked to receive pictures of their blooms this summer so that he might share them on his social media,” Zitterkopf said.
Work on the pollinator garden will begin soon, and the space has been added to the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum's Wildflower Week schedule on Friday, June 6. The gardeners will finish planting on June 6, and there will be a ribbon cutting at 10 a.m. The public is invited.
