Staff photo by Clay Schuldt Free pollinator seed packets were available at the New Ulm Pollinator Park, Saturday. The seed giveaway was to encourage people to plant pollinating plants to promote a healthy environment for pollinators. Free pollinator seed packets were available at the New Ulm Pollinator Park, Saturday. The seed giveaway was to encourage people to plant pollinating plants to promote a healthy environment for pollinators.

NEW ULM — Tables full of wild pollinator seed were set up in New Ulm’s Pollinator Park on North Broadway, Saturday.

Citizens were free to take any pollinator seed available as well as pollinator plant guides to help promote a healthy environment for pollinators.

The free seed was harvested from plants in the pollinator garden. Seed included large zinnia, hardy hibiscus, black-eyed Susans, New England aster, fragrant hyssop, wild bergamot and many more. The meadow blazing star was the most popular seed. It produces a purple flower the bees and the butterflies adore.

It is still early in the planting season. Few of the pollinating plants have come back from the winter, but now was the time to start planting.

Event organizer Deb Steinberg said “we are encouraging people to plant pollinators, even if it is a small plot.”

Even a tiny pollinator garden could help bees, butterflies and other pollinators.

The Pollinator Park was established in North Broadway Park in 2016. Since then other individuals and organizations have planted pollinating plants to assist the pollinators. Steinberg has seen pollinator parks around schools and the library.

“I think it has really caught on,” she said.

On Saturday, June 5, a special open house event will be held across New Ulm. The public will be encouraged to visit some of the wilderness and non-developed parks in the city.

“We have some of the most wonderful developed parks in the state here,” she said. “We want to promote some of the non-developed parks too.”