Why this student garden keeps its dead flowers
The Community Agricultural Project’s pollinator patch is deliberately untidy, because piles of stems are homes for native bees, wasps and spiders.
A garden tucked beside Washington Square Village looks, to a passer-by, like a heap of grey-green shrubs. CAS senior Lily Primeaux, a co-founder and president of the Community Agricultural Project, says that is the point: unlike the pruned gardens elsewhere in the city, this one exists only to support native pollinators. When people ask why she leaves dead flowers standing, she explains they shelter native bees, wasps, spiders and ants.
The idea came from a field trip with NYU’s Sustainability Leaders Fellowship to Lentol Garden in Greenpoint, where an unruly corner turned out to be full of native plants. In 2024 Primeaux and fellow students Priya Massie and Neo Ng, who founded the SEEDS club in 2023, applied for a microgrant from the Office of Sustainability, which offers awards of up to $3,000 alongside Green Grants of up to $20,000. They already had space, which made the application easier. They bought plants from the Gowanus Canal Conservancy to support golden digger wasps, skipper butterflies and black swallowtails.
- Lily PrimeauxCAS senior; president and co-founder, Community Agricultural Project
- Priya Massie and Neo NgAlumni; founders of the SEEDS club (2023)
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