Mansfield Dam Park
The very first site for the Pollinator Garden Project was Mansfield Dam Park next to Lake Travis. With current staffing shortages in County parks, we served as an important resource to both park staff and pollinators.
We began by tending to an existing bed near the park offices, across from the playground. It had been overtaken with hackberry, sotol, and cactus. Once those were pruned back, there was more room for other native plants that would not only beautify the space, but provide food and shelter to native bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.
A committee member then came up with a design for the revamped garden (see below). We hope someday it will look like this, but new beds take time! We chose plants with staggered bloom times from early spring to the first frost, but unlike in the design, the plants won’t all bloom at the same time. But we hope there will always be food in the garden for our pollinators!
As you can see, we are not there yet. The good news! About 80 percent of the plants survived record heat and dry conditions this summer. Plants are growing but are there not many blooms yet.
A second planting is scheduled to take place this fall. We have looked to see what did well during this drought and what struggled. This fall, we will add more of the plants that took the heat in stride (including flame acanthus, rock rose, gregg’s mistflower, and fall aster, to name a few). We’ll be creating drifts of each type of plant to make it easier for pollinators to find them.
Stayed tuned! We will update this page to show the garden in progress.