Students, volunteers prepare for pollinator garden at Alto Park

May 25—Clara Maneely worked with intensity.

The 11-year old, a fifth grader at Aspen Community School, pushed wheelbarrows of mulch toward empty garden space at Alto Park on Tuesday morning. Then, she grabbed a rake to spread the pile into an even layer.

Over the next few seasons, the strip of land, located between the park's tennis courts and recreation fields, is slated to receive a major makeover.

A team of master gardeners, volunteers and youth — as well as city parks officials — have collaborated to create the beginnings of a pollinator habitat. On Tuesday morning, they gathered to continue conditioning the soil with layers of mulch, with plans of planting in the fall.

Maneely, an Alto Park regular, is among those excited to see how the pollinator habitat develops.

"It also helps our communities," she said.

To Doug Conwell, a member of the pollinator habitat planning committee, Alto Park seemed like the "perfect position" for a pollinator garden.

It offers an abundance of human neighbors, from regulars at the Mary Esther Gonzales Senior Center and Bicentennial Pool to the students of Aspen Community School and the National Dance Institute of New Mexico. All of those park people, Conwell thought, could stand to learn more about pollinators and their role in the environment.

Meanwhile, he added, the park's spot along the banks of the Santa Fe River will ensure the pollinators lured to the garden can take advantage of the wetland habitat's variety of flora and fauna.

"It just seemed like it was a perfect storm — in a good way," Conwell said.

He gathered a crew of master gardeners, volunteers and parks personnel to figure out how they might work together to create a pollinator garden — and they gathered the park's users and neighbors to help in the effort.

For Margo Shirley, a volunteer, the project was particularly personal. Alto Park's full name is Ron Shirley Alto Park, renamed in 2021 to honor the longtime parks department head — Margo Shirley's late husband.

Margo Shirley promised she wouldn't let her husband's name or the park die. So she, alongside a group she called her "compadres," joined the team building the pollinator garden to ensure the park would remain alive with butterflies, bees and hummingbirds.

The city parks department got involved, too, removing stones from the pollinator garden zone and installing irrigation lines, said Rick Espinosa, parks superintendent for District 1, which includes Alto Park.

The new garden will be a win-win for pollinators and people, Espinosa said: Park upgrades tend to draw new crowds.

"It's going to definitely spruce up the look of the park, make it look better, make people want to come and just see what we're doing," he said. "So it's a positive to get people out to the park."

Conwell also approached educators at Aspen Community School — located across the street from the park — about the possibility of collaborating. The project would allow students, teachers and families at the public school, which serves about 350 students from pre-K through eighth grade, to use the pollinator habitat as a learning opportunity.

Joseph Ortega, an art teacher at Aspen and the leader of the school's gardening club, got his students involved.

There's educational value to gardening, Ortega said. It's a tactile science lesson that becomes immediately relevant to students' lives — in many cases because they're able to taste what they've planted.

It'll also encourage his students — who will be able to follow the garden's progress through eighth grade — to become good stewards of their environment, Ortega added.

"The more of this, the better," he said.

But the Aspen Community School students weren't the only ones who joined in the pollinator garden effort. A youth soccer team that typically plays in the park spread cardboard and mulch across the space, and local businesses donated supplies and snacks for the volunteers.

The volunteer crew plans to raise funds to purchase plants throughout the summer before planting in the fall, Conwell said.

"This is going to require nurturing and maintenance and ongoing care," he said.

Luckily for Conwell, there is a team of students and volunteers willing to do that.