Scout Paul Dakin recently partnered with Backyard Nature to plan and install a raised bed native plant garden for a retirement community in Monroeville as his Eagle Scout Project! See below!
Hi, my name is Paul Dakin. I am (currently) a Life Scout working on my Eagle Scout rank for Scouting America. I am from Troop 17, located in Allison Park, PA, a few miles north of Pittsburgh. There are several components of achieving the rank of Eagle Scout: leadership, merit badges, and a service project led by the scout. When I started searching for a project to carry out, there were many incredibly deserving options that I considered. However, through the outreach of a close family friend Dr. Maria Wheeler-Dubas of Backyard Nature, I settled on the project of leading the design, construction, and installation of a raised planter garden bed at Beatty Pointe Village, a retirement community in Monroeville, PA. Now that I had an idea in mind, I designed a cost-effective and sturdy blueprint for a planter, considering the requests that the planter be visible from the sunroom. After that, I had a bunch of paperwork to complete to document the process and present to adults, followed by securing the funding necessary to purchase the supplies needed to build the planter. Thank you to Backyard Nature, Beatty Pointe Village, Home Depot of Allison Park, and Suzanne McCoy, my grandmother, for their generous donations. After acquiring the funds, I scheduled workdays and purchased the supplies for the project. Then, the construction of the project began. I had multiple days of work with many different people showing up to help. Some days involved cutting, some days involved sanding, some screwing boards together, etc. Finally, once the planter was assembled, we utilized a minivan trunk to move the entire planter to Beatty Pointe Village. Once there, we moved the planter to its current location and filled it with planting soil. From there, Beatty Pointe residents will be able to plant flowers seasonally and decorate the planter with other seasonal items.
In addition to beautifying the patio of Beatty Pointe Village, I also built this planter to provide the local pollinator species of Western Pennsylvania with a source of food and a habitat. Due to habitat loss, climate change, and the increase in invasive plants and animals, the populations of native pollinators have been in decline, which has had many adverse effects on agricultural industries and local wildlife. Additionally, many native plants rely on a dwindling population of only a few pollinators to reproduce. As many as 75% of native plants and many commercial crops rely on insects for pollination. This fine balance has led to the endangerment of many species of both plants and animals.
Considering the threats to biodiversity, I would strongly encourage that this planter utilizes native plant species to attract pollinators to thrive in the Beatty Pointe Village and provide the rest of the garden with the benefits of pollination. Given the sunlight exposure and depth of the planter, I would like to suggest a few native species of plants and flowers to be planted in this planter. Some of the species include chokeberry, meadowsweet, little bluestem, goldenrod, asters, coneflowers, beardtongue, butterfly weed, joe pye weed, summerset, and blue lobelia. All these species are native to Western Pennsylvania and provide food and a habitat for native insects and pollinators. Additionally, many of these species can be left over in cold seasons, as the dead plant can serve as a shelter for native pollinators or their eggs.
For more information about Pennsylvania nature and wildlife, I would urge the reader to explore the rest of this blog website. Again I thank all of my incredible donors and Beatty Pointe Village for providing me with this wonderful opportunity to encourage such an important cause.
