About

The Corcoran Pollinator Project is a grassroots neighborhood initiative in Minneapolis that aims to increase urban biodiversity via a crop mob model in which neighbors help each other install new pollinator gardens with plants donated by other neighbors. We work in collaboration with Corcoran GROWS, our neighborhood Transition Town organization. As of November 2020 we have installed 60+ gardens with more than 100 different species of perennial pollinator plants that were donated by close to 20 neighbors and/or grown from seed in our own backyards.

For more about why pollinator habitat in residential landscapes is so crucial, we highly recommend Doug Tallamy’s 2009 book Bringing Nature Home, which shows how restoring native plants to our landscapes is essential for sustaining the web of life. In Minneapolis we have the opportunity to make a difference for the endangered rusty patched bumblebee.

We are looking for new garden sites for 2021! We also welcome volunteers who would like to donate plants, help with a garden installation, or help with outreach or mapping, and we are accepting donations of tools and yard waste bags. This is a fun way to meet gardeners in the neighborhood, learn about gardening, and receive beautiful free plants that sustain our bees, butterflies, moths, wasps, beetles, and other pollinators.