Kentucky Transportation Cabinet marking nine years of creating roadside pollinator habitats

Kentucky’s Transportation Cabinet is celebrating its nearly decade-long effort to grow flowers and native plants on roadsides. Allen Blair, the cabinet’s deputy executive director of public affairs, said it’s much more than a highway beautification project.

“These plots will help our pollinators, like bees and butterflies, and the survival of those pollinators is essential to the survival of, you know, our native plants, birds and animals here in Kentucky.”

According to a news release from the cabinet, since 2015, cabinet crews have seeded more than 100 sites along about 200 acres of interstates, parkways and other state roads. The plants and flowers make for a prettier drive, but Blair said that’s not the top goal of the program.

“Lots of benefits that we get out of this, not just the beauty that we see in our landscapes, but you know, the benefits to the pollinators and ultimately to make this a better Kentucky.”

Blair points out pollinators are essential for farmers’ crops.

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