Entries Due Friday, June 6, 2025

Announcing the Third Annual Bee City Art Show!  The city of Louisville became a designated Bee City in 2023 and our Bee City Committee continues to spread the word on the importance of pollinators, native plants and pollinator gardens, and the urgency of avoiding pesticide use. Local students are invited to share their artwork to help spread the buzz!

Students artwork will be displayed in public spaces in Louisville spring and summer of 2025 and returned to students in August 2025. 

Artwork should be 2D, between 9”x9” and 14”x18” , and can consist of pencil, crayon, paint, also  photographs or computer generated artwork can be submitted. 

Suggested themes include: spring, gardens, flowers and bees, native plants, pollinators, don’t use peticides. 

Artwork must be dropped of with a completed entry form to the Louisville Public Library between Friday, May 16, and Friday, June 6. Entries will be displayed at the library through July 10, 2025, and returned in August 2025 when school resumes.

Limit one entry per artist. 

Send any questions to: beecityloco@gmail.com 

• The Butterfly Pavilion offers habitat garden workshops that include a 30-minute consultation with a team member. https://butterflies.org/research-and-conserve/habitat-gardening/ 
• Denver Urban Gardens  offers garden kits and programs on pollinators, composting, and gardening. https://dug.org/
• Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference is held annually and offers grants for “wildscaping.” (https://landscapingwithcoloradonativeplants.wordpress.com/)
• High Plains Environmental Center has a native plant nursery, demonstration gardens and extensive support for habitat restoration at https://suburbitat.org/support/ 
• Wild Ones Front Range Chapter holds native plant giveaways in the fall, workshops, and a bee festival. https://frontrange.wildones.org/
• Denver Botanic Gardens has a wide-ranging education program and demonstration gardens.https://www.botanicgardens.org/education-programs
• Colorado Native Plant Society sponsors native plant sales, garden tours, and has published an informative guide to native plants that flourish on the Front Range: https://conps.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Native-Plant-Guide-Front-Range.pdf
• Colorado State University’s Extension Service has published Native and Water Wise planting guides, and is available to answer questions at https://ask2.extension.org/, and it offers a series of informative videos at https://planttalk.colostate.edu/
• Resource Central is an organization sponsored by regional water districts that provides free on-line workshops covering every aspect of water-wise gardening and pollinator-friendly landscaping techniques for the Front Range. Their “Garden in a Box” pre-planned gardens are hot items in the Fall and Spring.  Homes and properties damaged by the Marshall Fire are eligible for two Free “Garden in a Box” plantings at https://resourcecentral.org/gardens/
• Resource Central also presented and recorded a recent webinar on Firewise Landscaping, available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkeC0-UuoH0
• Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, the sponsoring organization for Bee City USA, has educational resources and many recorded webinars covering all aspects of invertebrate conservation, including native plants and pollinators, pesticide use, and environmental restoration, all available online through YouTube. Learn more about Bee City USA, invertebrate conservation issues, or access their extensive library of webinars at  https://www.xerces.org/ Audubon Rockies Habitat Hero program promotes native plants and waterwise gardening for birds and native pollinators along the Colorado Front Range.  They provide regional plant lists, demonstration gardens, tips to create your own Habitat Hero Garden, webinars, and tours of local gardens at /.

City of Louisville Becomes an Affiliate of Bee City USA

Did you hear the latest buzz? The City of Louisville has officially been designated a Bee City USA® affiliate, a pollinator-friendly designation intended to improve local conditions for necessary beneficial insects. Louisville is the third city in Colorado to receive this designation, joining many other cities and campuses across the country united in improving their landscapes for pollinators.

Bee City USA is an initiative of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, with offices across the country. Bee City USA’s mission is to galvanize communities to sustain pollinators by providing them with a healthy habitat, rich in a variety of native plants and free of insecticides. Pollinators like bumble bees, sweat bees, mason bees, honey bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, hummingbirds, and many others are responsible for the reproduction of almost ninety percent of the world's flowering plant species and one in every three bites of food we consume.

The Bee City USA certification is both an honor and a responsibility. The program endorses a set of commitments for creating sustainable habitats for pollinators by increasing the abundance of native plants, providing nest sites, and reducing the use of pesticides. City staff and community members work together to carry out these commitments and make their city a better place for all pollinators.

“The program aspires to make people more PC—pollinator conscious, that is,” said Scott Hoffman Black, Xerces’ executive director. “If lots of individuals and communities begin planting native, pesticide-free flowering trees, shrubs and perennials, it will create large-scale change for many, many species of pollinators.” 

The Parks and Public Landscaping Board (PPLAB) brought the idea of becoming an affiliate of Bee City USA to the City's attention, and the City Council adopted the resolution in December 2022. 

The City of Louisville has demonstrated its commitment to protecting pollinators and their natural habitats with initiatives such as reducing herbicides by following a comprehensive Integrated Weed Management Plan (IWMP), planting pocket prairies with pollinator-friendly plantings, partnering with Resource Central for programs such as Garden In A Box, and increasing the abundance of native plants on public lands. As an official Bee City USA affiliate, the City will continue creating sustainable habitats for pollinators and educating residents about bees' critical role in our ecosystem.

Would you like to learn more about what you can do to support pollinators and pollinator-friendly landscaping?

For more information about Bee City USA, visit https://www.beecityusa.org/

For more information about the Xerces Society, visit https://xerces.org/

For information about four simple ways to help pollinators, visit https://xerces.org/bringbackthepollinators/

For more information on Colorado pollinator gardens visit https://resourcecentral.org/seminars/