The windmill on the island which was host to the Manitoba 150 flowerbed will still bloom, but look quite different.

Cathie McFarlane with the Portage gardening club says they received a community grant from the city in order to continue to utilize the space where the flowerbed was. She explains that they chose a pollinator garden specifically as it will benefit both bees and butterflies.

"We haven't got it yet, but we're going to have a bee/butterfly motel installed there and so it's the first year of it," explains McFarlane. "One of our local community members, Mr. Rossnagel, actually volunteered to keep out the bed weeded for us."

She adds it's a beautiful way to teach kids about the importance of flowers, noting it would be great for schools to use. McFarlane notes there's lots of different perennials and shrubs with a tree set up as the centrepiece.

"It will get better every year and the City actually installed a street sign. So when you're going down that street and you'd be traveling towards the causeway before you get to the windmill, there's a sign that says Pollinator garden," notes McFarlane. "Otherwise they might not notice it because it's on the other side of the windmill."

She hopes the garden will continue to grow as they plant more flowers.

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