The Great Falls Garden Club is proud to announce that Great Falls resident Kashmir Pandolfi, age 10, is the winner of its $150 Youth Pollinator Garden Grant.
Kashmir was chosen for her desire to create a 49 square foot pollinator garden at her home this summer. In 2021, Kashmir started her own pollinator garden club in order for its members to learn more about different plants, the cycle of life, the nutrients plants need, and different planting techniques, such as winter sowing.
Dr. Meghan McGinty, a Great Falls Garden Club member, will be the Garden Club’s point person to field Kashmir’s questions as she prepares, plants, and maintains her garden. Dr. McGinty also presented to Kashmir a potted wild bergamot to plant in her garden, noting that last year, Dr. McGinty’s wild bergamot was covered with butterflies.
Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), also called bee balm, is a perennial herb native to the eastern U.S. This plant has a pleasant, spicy scent that apparently reminded early colonists in North America of the bergamot orange. Tea enthusiasts among us can read online that wild bergamot is the spice in Earl Grey tea, but that’s confusing the bergamots. Wild bergamot is a beautiful plant that is edible and makes a reasonable tea, but it is not produced commercially for food. The essential oil that characterizes Earl Grey tea comes from the citrus fruit of the plant bergamot oranges (Citrus bergamia).
The Youth Pollinator Garden Grant was one of the many activities initiated by the Great Falls Garden Club this year to help celebrate its 80th anniversary.