Blog

While I am doing my best to keep my day job and this passion project separated, there is, as is the case for most college faculty, I think, a consistent fluidity between professional and personal pursuits, as is certainly the case for me with B Buckets. 

 

This post celebrates the end of the “Growing with Dana” series. I co-organized these workshops and lectures on native habits and habitats, with Peter Helfrich, chairperson of our Bee City USA affiliate, Beecatur (and part of the B Buckets team). The series was a public program of the Building on Dana project (2024-25), whose culmination is the exhibition Building on Dana / Patterns in Space, Dalton Gallery, Agnes Scott College, on view through May 19.

 

This project/exhibition has been a once-in-a-career opportunity, not just because I have, as architectural historian, been able to study the building in which I have worked for more than two decades AND I have worked with a colleague (Nell Ruby) who helps me dream large and risk big (B Buckets, of which Nell is also design/advocate, for example) AND we have been successful in our goal to establish the Dana Fine Arts Building in architect John Portman’s early career AND we have realized it with our students in the most ambitious professional-success initiative (for them) I will ever materialize BUT, most of all, because the people who have joined as collaborators — within and beyond our campus — are incredible.

 

AND we have started the third organic demonstration garden at Agnes Scott, in the greenspaces of the Dana Fine Arts Building, removing more than 60 invasive shrubs in August and beginning to re-establish native, pollinator-friendly plants in April. 

 

The final program was a discussion of Integrated Pest Management. I am being clear and transparent about my (personal) goal and efforts to help encourage and support the City of Decatur, the City Schools of Decatur, and Agnes Scott College to create and implement ecologically-safe, pollinator-supportive, proactive plans (which do not, if you are unfamiliar with IPMs, prohibit chemical controls, but they put non-toxic solutions in place first, with definitions, thresholds, PLANS). I don’t think any of us is against the idea of IPMs, which Bee City USA- and Bee Campus USA-accredited communities are required to have. But IPMs take a lot of research and coordination, in advance and in process. They are dynamic documents that have to be considered and changed, to meet new challenges.

 

Our conversation tonight gave me hope that we are on the cusp of moving beyond imagining to creating: building on and growing with all of the efforts and steps already taken, together. 

We were thrilled to join Community Day, the City of Decatur’s Earth Day celebration at Legacy Park sponsored by the Environmental Sustainability Board. We had a great time talking to those at the festival about our buckets and goals. Mayor Patti Garret bought one of our DIY buckets (special for in-person events — choose 5 elements and make your own composition of native plants and pollinators).

Leslie Inman of Pollinator Friendly Yards on Facebook, one of those who inspired me to start this bucket-making intiative, stopped by! It was a great public debut. We sold all but one bucket. 

April 12: I just came across an online conversation, which included this resource from Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conversation. I found their answers to questions about the safety of organic oils and mosquito sprays helpful and succinct so I am sharing them here.

April 17: The webinar, whose recording is available here, was fantastic, as expected.  Aaron Anderson talked about the research study in 2023, completed in three cities where mosquito sprays, are prevalent, including Decatur.

He called Decatur a “rockstar” Bee City USA community, and acknowledged our “really wonderful work to reduce mosquito spraying in [our] district.” Congratulations, Beecatur and Peter Helfrich! 

The study was able to gather data about types and levels of insecticides in sprayed yards that spray as well as in neighboring yards. They found high risk to pollinators in sprayed yards and some risk in others (up to 24 to 34 times, in two separate yards, the lethal dose of concentration for honey bees).

He also addressed mosquito buckets and said that he would rather everyone dump water every 7-10 days to disrupt the eggs since it takes about a week for mosquito eggs/lavrvae to hatch. Bti, according to Aaron, kills several species of small flies so there is some risk to target insects/pollinators beyond mosquitos, but much less toxic to sprays, which harm all the pollinators in the yard, especially when companies include synergists, which I had never heard of, that help the chemical sprays persist and make them more harmful! 

 

Agriculture Appreciation Week seems like the perfect time to get ourselves going since we can’t have successful agriculture without pollinators.

And if you haven’t already, please call Gov. Kemp and ask him to veto Senate Bill 144 that the legislature has approved, which protects companies from disclosure of ingredients or responsibility for harm, including, as I understand it, several examples of chemicals banned in the countries of manufacture and on the market here. 

While it seems unlikely to me that our agricultural state will stop this bill, it seems potentially harmful — for our farmers especially, but for all of us!

Gov office phone 404-656-1776

Be polite, and be clear; ask the staff person how they are or express some kindness. They are working hard answering phones, even if you don’t agree with their office’s positions.

Here is a potential script:

“This is _________ calling from __________ to register my concern and to ask Gov Kemp to veto Senate Bill 144.

Please protect Georgia farmers and consumers by giving us access to accurate label information on herbicides/pesticides and ensuring the companies’ accountability for their products, some of which are already banned in their countries of production. I would appreciate it if you would share my message with Gov. Kemp. Thank you for your time and your efforts on behalf of Georgians.”