Upcoming Events

Hosted by Diana Ames and Emily Bush
Location: Friendship Neighborhood, Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Date: Saturday, September 28th
Time: 10am

The primary purpose of the Fredericka Street Pollinator Project is to create and sustain habitat for bees, butterflies, and birds from unused or neglected spaces along Fredericka Street, a block long alley in Friendship. Planned and planted by neighbors Diana Ames and Emily Bush, the gardens were created in the spring of 2020 with funding from the City of Pittsburgh’s Love Your Block program.

The locations along a public right-of-way presents unique challenges. Gardens have occasionally been run over, or flattened by wayward basketballs. Some of the grant funding was used to install a rain barrel at one of the sites, but it’s been necessary to carry water to most of the gardens during the sporadic dry conditions over the past couple of summers. Other than watering as needed, limited maintenance is done on these sites.

Our main sources of plant material for the gardens was Beechwood Farms native plant nursery, Pisarcik’s Greenhouse in Butler County, and our own gardens. About 85 percent of the plants are native, including two amelanchiers.

Diana Ames is a master gardener, and has been growing natives for 20 years. She is former chair of the City’s Shade Tree Commission and principal founder of Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest, now Tree Pittsburgh. Diana is a regular volunteer at Baum Grove, Friendship’s community owned park.

Emily Bush grew up watching her parents tend to beautiful gardens at her childhood home, and meeting Diana inspired Emily to focus on planting primarily native plants in her own garden. She has a passion for monarchs and loves planting patches of milkweed and teaching her children how to care for caterpillars. Emily regularly helps maintain the gardens at her children’s school, the Waldorf School of Pittsburgh, and advocates for the planting of natives there as well.