Blooming Success: The 5th Annual Pollinator Garden Tour
- Margot Resto
- Jun 16
- 3 min read
Over 200 people attended LSLT’s 5th Annual Pollinator Garden Tour on June 7th to get an intimate look at nine private gardens throughout Berlin’s quaint downtown. Gardens of all sizes were highlighted, celebrating pollinator-friendly habitat. Except for one brief midday cleansing deluge, the weather was perfect for meandering through pathways and backyard gardens, deep, vivid green leaves and flower petals lush and saturated with recent Spring rain, vibrant with scattered crystal raindrops, releasing fresh, exotic scents - a feast for all senses.
A one-day event for the first time in this event’s 5-year run, the Tour was mostly walkable, save for two outlier gardens which employed bikes and cars to save the extra steps for some. This year, attendees were given a “passport” to locate unique items in each of the nine gardens to enter for the chance to win an ice cream gift card: a rain chain, an upside-down tree, a red Buddha, dancing frogs, a beehive, a rain garden, a paw paw grove, little bluestem grass, walnut trees, and more. Attendees lit up at the childlike fun and curiosity it inspired in them.
A new feature added this year was a Children’s Plein Air Art station, where pizza boxes were propped up into easels, and paint and brushes (and tiny hands!) splashed joyful expressions of color onto the blank canvases, all while surrounded by nature.
Many found connection with fellow garden lovers, enjoying the chance to talk with the garden hosts, and leaving with ideas, tips and inspiration. They also had the unique chance to observe plein air artists stationed at each garden, expressing their own interpretation of nature’s muses, in the moment.
Part of the Lower Shore Land Trust’s goal with the Tour is to encourage people to embrace the idea that each garden, no matter the size, from containers on a doorstep to large backyard gardens, can make an impact on providing pollinators with a safe space to thrive. Each and every pollinator-friendly plant is part of a larger patchwork that creates one giant garden for all of our pollinators to call home.
The experience of the Garden Tour was described by one attendee as feeling ‘akin to Japanese forest-bathing,’ known as Shinrin-yoku, the practice of immersing oneself in nature, particularly forests, to promote well-being. She said she felt a sense of calm, delight, and wonder, and felt revived after spending the day absorbing gardens. Another attendee shared her experience:
“To the organizers of this year's tour: Congratulations to all those responsible for this fabulous tour of Berlin's gardens!!!!! I LOVED it!! All the gardens were such a delight to explore!! I also really liked that the tour was walkable. A real extra bonus in my opinion. Thanks for a very enjoyable experience.”
SAVE THE DATE: To round out the complete Tour experience, the public is invited to attend the Pollinator Garden Tour Plein Air Art Exhibit & Sale on Friday, June 27th, 5-7pm. The event is generously hosted and sponsored by Bishop’s Stock Gallery in Snow Hill. Guests will enjoy wine, hors d’oeuvres, live music by classical & jazz guitarist, Quinn Parsley (how perfect is that name for our event??), and will have the opportunity to meet and talk with the artists and view the work they created in the gardens. Works will be available for sale, as well as raffles for a chance to win cash and prizes. A portion of the proceeds will go directly to LSLT. Even if you didn’t get to go on the Garden Tour this year, you’ll still enjoy each of the gardens through the eyes of nine artists. Free to attend, no RSVP required. Join us!
