Healthcare, housing top concerns at legislative breakfast

Efforts to protect pollinators, grow affordable housing and pass healthcare reform were among the hot topics of the final legislative breakfast of 2024, held Monday at the Weybridge Congregational Church.

It’s often been said that many hands make light work, and that’s certainly the idea behind the volunteer “working bee” groups being organized by The Addison County Relocalization Network.

Make no mistake, honeybees and beekeepers in Vermont are struggling.

Avanleigh Cota hosted a committee of Pollinator Pathway of Addison County gardeners in Starksboro to share the process behind her project, Champlain Valley Monarchs.

Recently I bought a few chrysanthemums and asters from a local hardware store, but as I was about to plant them, I wondered if they too had been laced with the neonicotinoids I’d so carefully avoided when buying my summer bedding flowers.

Fall is the time of year we generally begin to put our gardens to bed. I have recently changed my garden practices considerably since learning that our gardens can be important havens for pollinating insects and other wildlife during every season of the y … (read more)

The writer Henry James has been quoted as saying the loveliest phrase in the English language is summer afternoon. I say add a visit to Monkton’s and Charlotte’s pollinator gardens on such an afternoon.

Many home-grown fruits and vegetables require pollination to develop fruit and seeds. Approximately 75% of all food crops grown in the United States depend on bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators.

A Pollinator Garden was created at Lincoln Town Office adding to a growing number of such native gardens in our area.

Here in Addison County, people are celebrating National Pollinator Week June 19-25 with garden tours, book displays at libraries, and more. 

Mowing high, set to 5 instead of 3, allows wild plants in pesticide-free mowed areas to thrive under the cutting blade.

A white clapboard church sits on Route 116 in the center of Starksboro village. At the front steps of this Baptist church are two container gardens, now home to pollinator-friendly plants. 

Some Addison County residents may have been surprised when warm weather rolled in with the beginning of November, bringing sunny days and comfortable temperatures at a time when Vermonters are usually starting to bundle up for the winter.

On a chilly morning earlier this week, a class of Middlebury Union High School students stepped outside to learn about botany from a large group of winged experts — honeybees. 

Wild bees are important pollinators for our crops, gardens and wild plants. In Vermont there are over 350 types of wild bees, including 17 different species of bumblebees.