Projects

Lawn Conversion Grant Program

Franklin Conservation District (FCD), through a grant from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, is partnering with communities in Franklin County to support pollinators, improve soil health, and beautify our county with native plants by converting mowed spaces into native plant gardens and meadows. 

Current Projects

Municipal Projects Underway

For this first year of the grant, FCD has partnered with Charlemont, Deerfield, and Leyden. Each town has selected spaces that will be converted into native plant gardens or meadows.

  • Charlemont’s Hawlemont Elementary School will install a 1,400 sq.ft. native garden on its grounds in partnership with the school’s Hawlemont Agriculture and You (HAY) program. The ground will be prepared during the summer of 2023 with planting scheduled for the fall.
  • Deerfield has selected a field outside of town on Upper Road for conversion into a native plant meadow, and the municipal section of Bloody Brook, which has been designated as highly vulnerable to flooding, was chosen for riparian stabilization using native plants.
  • Leyden town officials  decided to convert a lawn space outside the town offices, and the Robertson Memorial Library will expand its existing pollinator garden into the lawn with the addition of native plants


Municipal Projects In Development

  • Colrain residents are  working to gain approval from the town selectboard to install native plants at the Veterans Memorial in the center of town.
  • Erving Public Library is developing a comprehensive library campus plan in collaboration with multiple partners. FCD is delighted to contribute native plants for the rain garden design.

Program Open to Residents 

Residents of Franklin County can contact the District to apply for a design consultation and a starter set of native plants to convert your own lawn space! Be sure to attend your the educational workshops (see below) for free materials and fun bonuses to help with your project.

What if your town isn’t participating?

We are seeking partnerships with more Franklin County towns. If you would like to help bring this program to your town, please email the District.

Winter Education Series

Join us this winter at the following events around Franklin County

Lawns Into Meadows Author Talk

December 2, 2023  

2:00-4:00PM at the Leyden Town Offices, 7 Brattleboro Rd. in Leyden

Lawns Into Meadows talk by local author, native plant expert, and landscape designer, Owen Wormser, will inform us about how we can transform the deadzone of the modern lawn into an ecological contributor to pollinator  and soil health and resilience. 

 
Welcoming Pollinators Home with Tom Sullivan
Thursday, February 22, 6 – 7 PM, Dickinson Memorial Library, 115 Main St., in Northfield
Tom’s work as a gardener and landscape designer is led by a recognition that whole ecosystems and human health are intertwined with pollinator well-being. As such, he creates designs that primarily use native plants, both for their ecological benefits and aesthetic fit in the landscape, with the priority of creating native bee habitat. Tom will share strategies you can employ in your own landscape to welcome pollinators while allowing ample space for human activity. Tom completed a Master of Arts in Landscape Design from the Conway School.  
 

Adventures in Native Plant Gardening for Beginners

March 17, 2024, 2 – 4 PM at the Leyden Town Offices, 7 Brattleboro Rd. in Leyden

and

April 20, 2024, 11AM-12PM at the Griswold Memorial Library, 12 Main Rd. in Colrain

Learn the basics using native plants in gardens and the diversity of life created in even a small garden.  Native plants bring insects, birds and other wildlife to your space while improving soil health and making the land more resilient.

What’s good? What’s bad? Does that insect sting? What is that cool butterfly? Three years after slowly planting native plants in her own field, she has some answers to these questions.  Jocelyn Demuth is the proprietor of Checkerspot Farm,  a native plant nursery in Colrain, MA named after an elusive butterfly. Last year the farm’s namesake returned to the native plant meadow attached to the farm. Jocelyn will share the ways that you can create space for and identify some of these interesting creatures who are the foundations of our ecosystems.
 

Native Plants Education Series

As part of our Lawn Conversion grant program, FCD is offering a native plants education series featuring local experts to help you get started in your own landscape. 

Jocelyn Demuth will take us for a stroll around her meadow, which is still abuzz in September. Come see what’s happening, meet some new-to-you native plants, and learn what to do with your own garden or meadow once the season ends.

Native Plant Meadow and Pollinator
Walk and Talk

with Amy Pulley of Wing and a Prayer Nursery

August 5, 2023     8:30-10:30 am 

Cummington, MA

Join Amy Pulley at her native plant nursery, Wing and a Prayer, for a walk in the meadow to experience the late summer blooms and busy pollinators in search of pollen and nectar. Amy will give us a tour of her meadow plantings and speak about the interdependent relationships between native plants and pollinating insects. More than a morning walk, this walk and talk is for those of us who want to know why native plants have become a hot topic. It’s also for those of us who are following the science and want to be part of the solution right in our very own yards and communities. It is also for those of us who just want to spend some time amidst the flowers and the creatures that visit them. We hope you will be delighted by what you see, and encouraged to enhance wildlife habitat in your own landscape.

Residents of the following communities, mark your calendar for these upcoming launch events!

  • Deerfield – April 8, 2023
  • Leyden –  Dec. 2, 2023
  • Charlemont – Spring 2024 (Date TBA)
Deerfield Event Details
Can’t make it to the events?
Complete the interest form below so we can contact you.
 
Interest Form