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The Buzz on Gardens for Bees

Chuck Landrey lives about three miles from his Old Saybrook office, in a house surrounded by native plants and flowers and buzzing with pollinators. As he drives or rides his bicycle to work, he’s noticed something—or the lack of something.

“There is almost nothing between” his home and his office, he said, “nothing except green, chemically treated lawns.”

“I’m not anti-lawn. I have a lawn,” he continued. But he can’t help but wonder: “Where is there a place for bees and butterflies to feed, to lay their eggs, for their caterpillars to feed? There’s just nothing around if you look at the average yard.”

Landrey is a beekeeper, so he knows about pollinators and things that buzz. He’s also an avid gardener who has been transitioning his yard for the past several years to native plants. His expertise and environmental concerns dovetailed with his company’s desire to “have a specific project that we could really embrace outside of the business,” he said.

Landrey is co-owner of Old Saybrook-based Andre Prost, Inc., an importer and distributor of fine foods. One of its products, Honees—available as candy or cough drops—is filled with real honey. (The company also distributes Taste of India/Thai/China meal packets, among other well-known brands.) So it seemed that all roads naturally led to a grant project called Gardens for Bees.

Andre Prost, Inc., has “committed to grants of a total of $50,000, running through the end of 2020,” for organizations creating pollinator-friendly gardens using native plants, Landrey said. The grants are not available to individuals, but the company plans to provide information on its website for those interested in establishing native gardens in their own yards.

While the grants are available to organizations nationwide, it hasn’t been easy to get the word out. A Wisconsin-based organization called Wild Ones, which promotes environmentally sound landscaping practices, has promoted the grants on its website, Landrey said.

Someone connected with Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center in Mystic happened to come across that information, and the center’s application was rewarded with $2,000 for meadow restoration at Coogan Farm. The Westbrook Garden Club’s project to create a sustainable meadow at Salt Island Overlook received a donation of native plants. The meadow is being designed by Kathy Connolly of Speaking of Landscapes, who is a mentor of sorts to Landrey.

So far, Gardens for Bees has awarded around $10,000 in grants “to various projects...to create gardens or natural landscapes that are devoted not just to honeybees but to native species of bees and all pollinators,” Landrey said.

“The plants need to be primarily native plants,” he explained. “The young are feeding on the leaves of native plants. They’re not able to feed on the typical butterfly bush. A butterfly bush will have lots of butterflies all over it, but none of our native pollinators can feed on that bush. That’s a big reason why you want to use native plants.

“A very valuable shrub or tree is the native pussy willow, which is of great value to a wide variety of pollinators,” Landrey said. “Then you have some plants and insects which have developed extremely tight relationships” with particular plants.

“The most popular example of that is milkweed,” he said. Monarchs will only lay their eggs and their caterpillars have to have milkweed to feed on.”

Organizations interested in applying for a grant for a pollinator garden should visit honees.com/bees.