College Park is a Bee City USA affiliate.

The Bee City USA is an organization dedicated to improving habitat for pollinators nationwide focusing on communities, backyards, and gardens. The City is identifying sites throughout the city to create pollinator gardens and will be looking for volunteers to help with planting, maintenance and oversight. City maintained plantings that have non-native plants will be identified for renovation and replaced with native plants, which are pollinator and wildlife friendly.

Last fall the median in Cherokee Street at 49th Place was selected as a Good Neighbor Day project to create a pollinator friendly demonstration garden using native seeds to showcase native plants adapted to our local ecosystem. As the seeds sprout, grow and develop into plants they will provide critical food and habitat for butterflies, bees, and other wildlife. The demonstration garden will require minimal maintenance after establishment, and the use of pesticides or herbicides will be avoided.

City employees and volunteers prepared the site by removing existing grass and vegetative growth, loosened the soil to create a favorable seedbed, spread the native pollinator friendly seeds, and mulched the area. A cover crop of Rye grass seed was spread over the pollinator friendly seed mix to protect and help the new seeded planting become established.