Pollinator garden at solar field borne out of partnership
Nov. 16, 2022
By Sarah White – For the Herald
Jeffrey Barrie, CEO of TEC, speaks during the ground breaking ceremony for the new pollinator garden at the MTE solar field in College Grove, Tn. on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. The acre of land sits between the solar field and residential houses, under a TVA power line strip. Photo/ Sarah White 
Members of TEC and MTE prepare to break ground at the site of the new pollinator garden at the MTE solar field in College Grove, Tn. on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. Photo/ Sarah White 
Jeffrey Barrie (left), CEO of TEC, shakes hands with Chris Jones, president and CEO of MTE during the ground breaking ceremony for the new pollinator garden at the MTE solar field in College Grove, Tn. on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. Photo/ Sarah White 
Monika Pretz, pollinator garden field volunteer coordinator at TEC, speaks during the ground breaking ceremony for the new pollinator garden at the MTE solar field in College Grove, Tn. on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. Photo/ Sarah White 
A member from TEC hands out packets of native wildflower seeds to be spread during the ground breaking ceremony for the new pollinator garden at the MTE solar field in College Grove, Tn. on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. Visitors were also encouraged to take a packet home to plant their own garden and register it with TEC using a QR on the packet. Photo/ Sarah White 
Monika Pretz spreads native wildflower seeds on the site of the future pollinator garden during the ground breaking ceremony at the MTE solar field in College Grove, Tn. on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. TEC will use natural herbicides and tilling to slowly remove the grasses that currently inhabit the area before officially planting native wildflowers in the Spring. Photo/ Sarah White
Members from the Tennessee Environmental Council (TEC) and Middle Tennessee Electric (MTE) gathered to break ground and spread wildflower seeds to commemorate the creation of a native pollinator garden at MTE’s College Grove solar field.
The one-acre plot will be the newest project in TEC’s Generate Some Buzz program which has already established over 160,000 square feet of native pollinator habitat in Tennessee since its inception in 2019.
“Pollinators are essential to our food, and they have been on the decline for decades. We have the power to turn that around by creating habitat for them. If you plant it, they will come – that’s the beauty of it,” said Jeffrey Barrie, CEO of TEC, during the ceremony Monday.
The goal of the project is to increase biodiversity in an otherwise unusable area located underneath a power line while demonstrating the value of pollinator habitats to the community.
“My hope is that this will be a prime location that people around will be able to see and maybe recognize that this is so easy to do on their own property,” said Monika G. Pretz, TEC pollinator garden field volunteer coordinator.
Pretz emphasized that pollinator gardens can be created anywhere with any amount of land.
This project was born out of long-standing relationship between MTE and TEC. Chris Jones, president and CEO of MTE expressed his interest in doing more to make the infrastructure of MTE environmentally friendly.
“We’re thankful the relationship that we’ve enjoyed between MTE and TEC for a long time so we are excited about partnering with this effort and what it will mean,” said Jones. “Let’s keep working together and doing good for the community and for the environment.”
“It’s a great honor to work with Middle Tennessee Electric in establishing this acre of native pollinator habitat,” said Barrie. “It’s been a collaborative effort between MTE and TEC to transform the grassy area here that has been maintained as grass for years if not decades into a native pollinator habitat.”
TEC will soon begin removing the grasses that currently inhabit the area with natural herbicides before tilling the soil to officially plant native wildflowers in the spring of 2023. Barrie expects to see blooms as early as June 2023, with the plot taking two to three years to reach full maturity.
Sarah White 