Salado Montessori School Native Pollinator Garden

The Keep Texas Beautiful Native Garden Grant for Salado Montessori is intended to provide an opportunity for our community to learn more about protecting our pollinators and also building a skillset to reduce the amount of turf grass in their own yards.  The overall goal is to create a beautiful native garden for all to enjoy, including birds, butterflies, and most importantly our children who will become future leaders. 

An unexpected and very exciting impact of the grant were the donations and discounts on materials and design that came because the project was associated with Keep Texas Beautiful; our donors included Terra Living, Gabriel Valley Farms and Home Depot.

This project provided Salado Montessori and Keep Salado Beautiful with the opportunity to educate the Salado Montessori community and greater FaceBook community about the importance of planting native, pollinator-friendly plants.  We were extremely lucky to have Tracy McLoud of Terra Living join us on the day of the event to provide excellent information to our volunteers about the plants selected, such as the salvias, fennels, senna, and asters.  This type of education is what will allow the volunteers to feel empowered to make changes in their own yards.  Master Gardener Susan Terry gave a pollinator workshop for our families, and each family had butterfly identification materials to take home.
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This pollinator garden is “kid friendly.” Each plant is labeled by photo and name along with a butterfly (and caterpillar) that would be expected to visit that plant. As the garden matures, this will be a haven for butterflies and a magnet for curious children; a true outdoor learning lab.