Schryver Park Gnome Garden

This Gnome Garden at the east entrance of the park is part of the recent efforts to enhance the natural environment of Manitou Springs that began in 2018. The garden includes a wooden gnome sculpture, which whimsically observes as visitors, water foul, and wildlife go about their day. The garden surrounding the gnome features native plants, which include sulfur flowers, wild strawberry, blue mist penstemon, rocky mtn penstemon, bee balm, rocky mountain columbine, blue columbine, blanket flower, silver lupine, shrubby cinquefoil, sticky geranium, goldenrod, and an air loom wood rose bush. Amy Yarger, Horticulture Director of the Butterfly Pavilion, originally designed this first official pollinator garden in Manitou. Other Schryver Park amenities include the Manitou Springs Pool and Fitness Center, public restrooms, electric bike share, EV charging station, a play area, picnic tables, restrooms, and a pond. A lighted fountain was added to the pond in 2024 which keeps the water aerated, clean, and ultimately healthier for habitat.

MANITOU SPRINGS POLLINATOR DISTRICT

The creation of this district is an outgrowth of work begun in 2018 by the Manitou Springs Pollinator Project. Their mission is “to enhance the natural environment of Manitou Springs to make it a more pollinator friendly city”. In September of 2019, Manitou Springs City Council Adopted a Resolution Establishing the Commitment to Have a Sustainable Environment and An Ambitious Response to Climate Change for the City of Manitou Springs. The first of seventeen actions states, “Protect pollinators and ecosystem health through reconfirming our commitment to organic land management and, beginning immediately, expand the use of pollinator-friendly plants and practices on City and private properties”. Manitou Springs School District 14 has also committed to supporting this project.

Over the winter of 2018-2019 it was discovered that at least eight beehives in Manitou Springs were abandoned by the bees, or the bees had died inside the hive. Aware that Pollinator populations have been declining nationwide, and that pollinator health and diversity play a critical role in the food supply for wildlife and people, project members researched creating a more robust program. This led to the discovery of a supported Pollinator District Program developed by the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster, Colorado. https://butterflies.org/copollinatornetwork/. Pollinator Project members are sponsoring Amy Yarger, Horticulture Director of the Butterfly Pavilion, to do a public presentation in Manitou Springs about Pollinator Communities during the month of June, 2020. Our goal is for Manitou Springs to become a Municipal Pollinator District. 

What is a Pollinator District? 

According to the Colorado Pollinator Network, “A Pollinator District is a community that is absolutely committed to conserving and improving habitat for pollinators in all aspect of operations. A Pollinator District is a development, including businesses, schools, public facilities and parks, designed, constructed and maintained in such a way that pollinator habitat demonstrates a net gain over the footprint of development. A Pollinator District engages all of the people who live, work and play there in this vital work; community members are vital resources who become citizen scientists, beekeepers, gardeners and stewards of the land. A Pollinator District is a long-term commitment, because these habitats and the populations of pollinators that rely on them take years to establish and thrive”. 

List of plants provided by Melody Daugherty. Email dated 5.5.2022.