Keep Carbondale Beautiful hosts Bee and Butterfly Friendly Yard and Garden Tour
A recent Bee and Butterfly Friendly Yard and Garden Tour, organized by Keep Carbondale Beautiful, provided an opportunity for participants to see plantings that highlighted different approaches to pollinator-supportive landscaping and backyard habitat creation.
The self-guided tour kicked-off at the Old Train Depot in downtown Carbondale, where 60 participants were treated to short presentations that covered planting with natives and provided an overview of the City’s pollinator-supportive landscape classifications.
Attendees also received a map of participating properties and after the presentations, they were free to visit as many of the sites as time and their desire allowed.
The majority of tour stops were residences representing a variety of landscaping efforts that included bee lawns, pollinator gardens and backyard native planting areas. Tour sites also included the 1-acre prairie planting on the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship property and a small prairie planting on the SIU campus.
At each site, homeowners/site-interpreters provided tours of the planted area and answered questions, in many cases leading short walks through the property.
An overall goal of the tour was to educate and hopefully inspire participants to create more pollinator-supportive landscapes in their yards and gardens. And based on positive feedback from both homeowners and tour participants, a second annual tour is being planned for 2026.
Special thanks are owed to the participating homeowners, Carbondale Main Street, Keep Carbondale Beautiful volunteers, members of the City of Carbondale’s Sustainability Commission and the Evergreen Garden Club for their efforts in support of the tour.
For more information about how the City of Carbondale approaches pollinator-supportive landscaping, why it’s important, and what resources are available visit explorecarbondale.com/900/pollinator-supportive-landscaping.
For more information about Keep Carbondale Beautiful, visit keepcb.org.