We’ve accomplished another one of our homeschool goals that I am SO happy to tell you about!!!

Our front flower garden has officially become a Certified Pollinator Habitat through the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden!!!!

We have put so much time, love, & money into this garden & I am SO proud of this accomplishment and honor! They sent us our yard sign, a packet on the best pollinators for Ohio, a packet of wildflower seeds, and a patch.

🌼 Welcome to Our *CERTIFIED* Pollinator Garden 🌼

The Golden Alexanders & Hibiscus are actually in our backyard, but they are still pollinators so I included them. The Hibiscus are especially fun to watch because the bees come out so fluffy when they are done. What a blessing from Mother Nature!!!

I have so many plans to expand our pollinator garden way further once we finish filling in these spaces completely first. We added a lot of these flowers this year and I’m really excited to see how much they grow next year as they become established. Some haven’t even begun flowering yet! I’m especially excited for those ones to come back next year, because the second year is always better.

This is only the beginning of our journey, & the first certification we have planned on our Homeschool Goal List. It’s so cool watching our goals come to life in front of our eyes though! I am teaching my children to not just talk about goals, but actually set out and accomplish them, no matter how long it takes. And how freaking amazing is it that we grew all of those beautiful flowers (and more)?!

Plus, it warms my heart that the kids enjoy creating beautiful bouquets for me & our home from our own garden. This one Sasha made is really, really cute. 💐

We are also currently propagating some more pollinators that we have picked up around town to add to our garden. It’s my secret way to add flowers for free 🤫. Always opt for picking a flower off the ground that has already fallen if possible, rather than picking directly from the plant.

My oldest son gifted me this amazing propagation station and it goes SO perfectly with our science wall.

Thanks to our pollinator garden, our kids have also developed a new hobby: trapping & releasing bees in their bug viewer (or hands, whatever). This is the most Sasha has collected at one time out of our garden:

We also found a mini hive they had started inside one of my watering cans. Unfortunately my children emptied it from the watering can so the bees abandoned it, but it made a super cool addition to our Nature Wall.

Because of this hobby, we will be adding bee hives along the side of our home for them so they can have a safe space to make their hives & honey without anyone interrupting their hard work.

I’m SO excited to add this to our mini homestead! That will be so cool! Hopefully we’ll soon be making our own honey! Luckily, we know some backyard bee keepers to turn to for guidance so that we can turn this new goal into a reality next 🐝.

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov