ATTRACTING POLLINATORS TO YOUR GARDEN

with Lesley Alward

Thursday, April 18th, 10:00am-11:30am

Attracting pollinators, be they bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, songbirds, or any of a myriad of other pollinators to your landscape is easy and essential for native plants and fruit and vegetable plots to support flowering and fruiting. Lesley Alward, a Yavapai County Master Gardener emeritus, avid gardener, and garden designer will share the recipe for creating a welcoming habitat garden rich with pollinators.

A Yavapai County Master Gardener emeritus (Class of 2005), past gardener and landscape contractor in both the Bay Area of California and Prescott, Arizona (1989 – present), past landscape and garden consultant as the AZ Garden Gals, and long-time Highlands Center volunteer and schoolyard habitat garden designer and builder (2007 to present), Lesley aspires to make gardening a fun, rewarding and successful enterprise by sharing her knowledge and experience. As a member of the Master Gardeners Association Speakers Bureau, Lesley gives garden-related talks to Quad Cities and Sedona garden clubs, at the Prescott and Prescott Valley Public Libraries, at Yavapai College through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), and the Highlands Center for Natural History. Her favorite subjects are welcoming pollinators to your home garden through habitat creation, using native plants in your home landscape, and hands-on, science-based tips to maximize the success of your gardening efforts. In the past 4 years, Lesley has been involved in designing and building or renovating pollinator and/or native plant demonstration gardens at the Verde Valley Discovery Center in Cottonwood, the Sedona City Hall, the Camp Verde Community Library, the VA Domicile, Coyote Springs Elementary School, the Highlands Center’s Discovery Gardens’ pollinator garden, Lincoln Elementary School, Taylor Hicks Elementary School, and currently at Abia Judd Elementary School. Notice that Lesley has no title starting with Doctor or ending with “ist”. She is not a horticulturist nor a biologist. She does, however, have over 35 years of experience in landscape and gardening, and, as a lifelong learner, she approaches gardening in the Central Highlands from a scientific point of view.