Bee City USA - Phoenix Oregon

03/18/2026

Come join us for a free community event at Blue Heron Park, Phoenix on Saturday, April 25, 2026 from noon to 4pm! Family fun, activities, performances, food, and more!

01/06/2026

09/07/2025

The Friends and Members of Bee City USA - Phoenix: Partnering with Communities to Protect Pollinators

Thinking globally and acting locally, Bee City USA provides a framework for communities to come together to conserve native pollinators by providing them with a healthy habitat that is rich in a variety of native plants, provides nest sites, and is protected from pesticides. Phoenix was certified as a Bee City in 2015 and joins other Bee Cities in Southern Oregon (Gold Hill, Medford, Talent, Ashland and Southern Oregon University).

If you want to see our Bee City Pollinator Garden in Phoenix, visit Blue Heron Park and look for our Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat signage. Enjoy viewing and learning about native plants, including several varieties of milkweed, which is what monarch butterflies need for laying eggs and as adults, drinking the nectar of the rich flowering plants.

Phoenix is so fortunate to have this habitat which was established in 2016 primarily by members Annie Draeger and Sharon Schmidt. During the Alameda Wildfire, it was destroyed, but Annie was determined to re-establish the garden and now it is flourishing once again.

Many businesses, residents, members and friends of our community have made the garden
what it is today.

~Jeanine Sturm who is a member of the Southern Oregon Landscaping Association (SOLA) installed the irrigation system and with her, This Season’s Color team continues to maintain the garden on a quarterly basis as a donation.

~HD Fowler Company donated irrigation parts and Hilton Landscaping Supply donated bark
mulch.

~Henry Cislo of Leave Your Mark is also a member of SOLA and contributed the engraved
dedication rock pictured in the photo.

~Gerlinda Smith, President of Bee City USA - Talent was invaluable in identifying plants and providing a year of biodynamic treatment for them after they were planted.

Beginning last October and now completed, Annie and two other volunteers, representing Bee
City - Phoenix also added two pollinator areas at the Jackson County Fuel Committee location
in Phoenix. They organized getting soil, plants and then planting and mulching.

Our most current feature at the pollinator garden at Blue Heron is a Peace Pole donated by the Bear Creek Valley Rotary Club, dedicated on May 19th, 2025. The pole is engraved with four languages and surrounded by the national flowers of each country: United States (rose),
Ukraine (sunflower), Mexico (dalia) and Ethiopia (calla lily).

Annie was also instrumental in obtaining a grant for expanding the Blue Heron Community Garden a few years ago. That area is now the site for the upcoming Children’s Outdoor
Education Center which will be run by Pollinator Project of the Rogue Valley(Kristina LeFever) and Blackberry Academy (Yessie Joy Verbena). The City of Phoenix approved this project and we are grateful for their support.

You are welcome to visit our page: https://www.facebook.com/people/Bee-City-USA-
Phoenix-Oregon/100066370608659/. There you can read more about us and what we do (Earth Day at Blue Heron Park for example).

Click on the link that directs you to an opportunity to work with members Cecilia Wakefield, Girl Scout Troop 10267 and Erika Baldwin, Master Gardener to certify your residential or business pollinator garden. They will come to your garden and suggest how to make it more “pollinator
friendly” as well as provide you with yard signage and a certificate designating your garden as a “Bee City USA -Phoenix Pollinator Garden”.

Sandy Wine,
President of Bee City USA - Phoenix

08/08/2025

Bear creek rotary club peace pole photos at the blue heron bee city pollinator garden (English, Spanish, Ukrainian, and Amharic of Ethiopia).

Phoenix Bee City USA planted the pole in June and had a ceremony - speakers were Ron Taylor (president) and Annie Draeger (bee city USA Phoenix).

04/18/2025

Come celebrate Earth Day April 19 from noon to 4 at Blue Heron Park, Phoenix!
https://youtu.be/6MnZyjLDS6c

On Earth Day, April 19, 2025, two great community events will be happening at Blue Heron Park in Phoenix. 9am tp 12pmA community-wide volunteer-driven clean ...

02/20/2025

Come celebrate Earth Day April 19 from noon to 4 at Blue Heron Park, Phoenix!
https://youtu.be/6MnZyjLDS6c

On Earth Day, April 19, 2025, two great community events will be happening at Blue Heron Park in Phoenix. 9am tp 12pmA community-wide volunteer-driven clean ...

02/20/2025

Save-the-date: Saturday, April 19
2025 Phoenix Earth Day Event

02/20/2025

Save-the-Date:
2025 Earth Day Celebration, Blue Heron Park on Saturday, April 19, noon-4:00pm

11/26/2024

Behind the Change: A sit down conversation with The Pollinator Project

10/24/2024

Come visit Phoenix Bee City USA and Girl Scout Troop 10267 at the Phoenix Holiday Bazaar, Saturday November 2nd 9-4, at the Phoenix Grange!