Garden District Pollinator Gardens

I’m an avid gardener. I loved gardening when I was young, but lost interest in it until I reached my mid-30s. When I started gardening as an adult, I found myself doing what we all do nowadays - sharing pictures on social media. To avoid forcing all my friends to looking at these pictures, I created an Instagram account specifically for all the garden stuff I was doing. It’s now called Grow Downtown and from time to time my former journalist brain likes to mix in some news. 

Back in early May, I was informed about an issue with the pollinator gardens located in the Garden District. They were in danger of being removed under the directive of the city-parish. The reason was due to a complaint logged to the city. 

I started asking around and learned far too much about the suspected complainant. The issue was less about the flowers and more about a personal rivalry with the woman who created the gardens, Ginger Ford. 

Ginger Ford, left, and her pollinator gardens.

At this point, I only knew Ginger by name. I had never spoken to her personally. I have since met and talked with her many times and find her to be one of the most charming people I’ve encountered. 

Now, whether or not the person who complained really is the person suspected or not, we will never know. The city will not disclose that information, and I’m grateful for that, because people should be able to make an anonymous complaint. So, because I cannot confirm who the person is, there’s really no reason to give that theory any more attention. 

What I can confirm is that the city was going to force Ginger to remove the pollinator gardens because they were in violation of the public right of way. They are all located at the corner of streets, which is space owned by the city. 

People plant in those spaces all the time. I have a fig tree planted in the public right of way. The city can dig it up whenever they like and they do not have to reimburse me for the cost of the tree. They own that space because it is part of public utility. Although the flowers Ginger planted were not as big of an issue, the city did have an issue with the stone sculptures that were placed in many of these gardens. They include pots, bird baths, and small garden sculptures. Those, they said, had to be removed, but they would allow the flowers to stay. 

The Online Response

I posted about this on my Grow Downtown Instagram and TikTok account. I asked, “What do you think about this? What’s the situation with this situation?” The response was overwhelming and almost everyone said the pollinator gardens must remain. 

That first post saw over 10K views on TikTok with 579 likes, and 146 comments. On Instagram, it swelled to 682 likes, 210 comments and over 15K views. 

About a week after that post, I was housesitting in the Garden District and was out walking the dog when I saw Ginger Ford out tending to one of the gardens. I stopped and told her about the post. We started talking and I asked her if she would be willing to let me film her and post it to my account. She agreed. 

I put my camera on her and just let her talk. I gave her two prompts, “Talk about why you started these gardens and explain what’s in them and why they are important.” She spoke for 8 minutes and I didn’t interrupt her once (a personal record for me). Every bit of what she said was fabulous, so I cut it up into four segments and released a segment every day. 

They exploded. 

The first video is approaching over 100K views on Instagram. A similar story played out on TikTok. In total, there are well over 200K views on all the videos over two platforms. What surprised me the most was how many people actually watched the entire video. Each clip was 2 minutes of a woman talking. Not flashing lights, jump cuts, trending sounds, etc. Just a 70 year old woman talking about plants and the environment. 

The Content

In the first video, she explains why she started the pollinator gardens. There are 29 on Camellia, 8 on Park Blvd, and 5 or 6 on random streets in the neighborhood. She started them during Covid and has gotten the permission of the homeowners before she begins. The homeowner has to give permission to use their water, but she uses drought tolerant plants to avoid having to water too much. 

“I put black tarp out over the corner and secure it either with pins or bricks, and in the summer time it only takes 2 to 3 weeks for the heat to kill the plants, but it also kills the seeds that are about 3 inches under the soil, so you don’t have to use any kind of chemicals to kill anything,” she explained. “And then, I have friends all over the Garden District. Some of them have border grass, some of them have flowers they want to thin out and donate, and so I don’t buy plants, I just sort of repurpose them from other people’s yards.” 

“Everybody loves it. The bees love it. The butterflies love it. The children love it. Photographers come out here and take pictures. Families take graduation pictures.” 

The second video goes a little deeper into her reasons. 

“The main thing is about the butterflies. We have ruined so much of the surface of the Earth with concrete, asphalt, and just killing things with chemicals, that the bees and the butterflies need to be brought back to our urban areas. And the way you can do that is to convert grass that doesn’t benefit you at all, and convert it into flower beds.” 

To achieve this, she is utilizing mostly native plants. This, she explains, makes the beds easier to maintain. 

“All of these are perennials. I never replant. I just let them come up and thin them out. These are drought tolerant plants, so I don’t have to water constantly.”

However, there are some special plants that make their way to the gardens. 

“Some people have donated flowers in memory of a family member. One person donated a bunch of amaryllis bulbs and I planted one on each corner, so when this person walks around they can see the flower and think of their family member.” 

She provided some tips for those who are thinking about doing something similar in their neighborhood or in their yard. 

“I advise people to plant denser than they usually do, because this is considered green mulch, in that the plants themselves keep the weeds down because I plant so close together.” 

The third video goes a bit deeper into her motivations and beliefs about current social attitudes towards the natural world. 

“I grew up gardening and I was just really amazed people are in what I consider everyday life. I hope the kids get interested because my thought about the next generation is if they don’t know what’s in the environment, how are they ever going to know that it’s missing.” 

This powerful statement is a simple one, but also truly profound. Each generation loses something from the last, and along the way people begin to forget what was supposed to be there. Just think about when you would take a road trip with your family in the car when you were a kid. Remember the windshield? It would be covered in bugs by the end of the trip. When was the last time you remember that happening?

“I grew up with banana spiders and lightning bugs and all kinds of stuff, and they’re gone. I have to go up to Port Hudson in the fall and I catch about 60 to 100 banana spiders and I bring them back and I put them in my yard and the kids are just amazed. They don’t see them!”

Suburban life has had a profound impact on the face of urban living. And our technology-driven social world is keeping more kids inside. 

“I’m 70 years old, and when I was a kid, to punish me, whenever that was necessary, my mother would make me come inside. And I guess kids these days, if you want to punish them, you have to make them go outside. I don’t know. But I think the more that kids spend with the environment, whether it’s going to a park, or making a flower bed… the more time they spend with the environment, I think the better chances they have of respecting plants, respecting animals, respecting human beings. We’ve lost touch with what’s important. My God if we screw this up where are we going to live? 

The final video was a quick reinforcement of everything that had been said and concluded with a final call to action. 

“When I was growing up, everybody had a vegetable garden in the backyard. You could talk over the fence to neighbors and swap plant stories, swap seeds, and there’s very few gardeners. I know a lot of that is because people don’t have time and because their parents didn’t teach them to do it. So I advise everybody to learn how to grow green beans, they’re simple, potatoes, you don’t have to have a brain to do that. Put a few plants out and let your kids see you doing that, because if they don’t see you doing it, the chance of them doing it is very, very slim.” 

I couldn’t have scripted it better had I tried. She told this story more than once. She’ll continue to tell it to whomever will listen. And we’re thankful that she does. 

The Comments 

Ginger had one request initially. She asked me to send her the video clip because she wanted to show her grandchildren. She gave me her email address and I happily obliged. 

After posting the interview, I was asked many times about how they could help Ginger on her mission, so I asked her and her request was simple. If you want to contribute, get a gift card to Clegg’s Nursery on Donmoor. The number is (225) 927-1419. 

Although she keeps costs low by repurposing plants, there are some fixed costs associated with every pollinator bed. In particular, the soil. 

“When I started doing the pollinator gardens, the main investment I had to make was getting good soil, and Clegg’s has the bed builder soil and it has the most macro nutrients in it. In the Garden District, most of the corner flower beds and medians have never been amended since that neighborhood was built in the early 1900s, so I had to start off with some good soil. Now there’s some organic material I get off the side of the street like leaves and the soil that’s on the side of the street, but starting off with the bed builder soil is a big plus.” 

She purchases the soil in bulk, but it still has to be transported. She ends up spending hundreds of dollars because of the large amount of area she covers. And, she has no plans of stopping any time soon. 

What’s Next

Ginger is going to fight the city if necessary, but she’s not alone. Attorney Jill Craft is helping to see if the ordinance that caused all the problems can be changed or adjusted. But, if that doesn’t work, Ginger will find another way. 

One thing I’ve learned from Ginger is that she is not one to back down from a fight, and if you look at the comments on the videos, you learn quickly that she is not alone.