WEST ASHLEY — As spring hits full-swing in the Lowcountry, visitors to the West Ashley Branch of the Charleston County Library can expect to see butterflies floating and bees buzzing around a newly installed set of flowerbeds. And it’s all thanks to Alex Platte, a prospective Eagle Scout.
Platte worked with friends, troopmates and their parents to build and install the beds on March 29 as part of a project to create a pollinator garden behind the library.
Platte said he has always loved reading and going to the library, plus he enjoys gardening, something he inherited from his grandmother. This was the perfect combination.
The library’s assistant branch manager, Andrea LaFalce, worked with Platte on the project. She learned last year about The Bee Cause Project, a local nonprofit that educates about pollinators and supports conservation efforts to protect them. She applied for their Pollinator Habitat Program, which awarded the library a grant to help fund the materials to build the flowerbeds.
Patrick McCormick (left) and Oscar Taylor construct a flower bed as part of their friend Alex Platte’s Eagle Scout project on Sunday, March 29, 2026.
Komlavi Adissem/Staff
With the funding secured, she connected with Platte and his parents through a friend who suggested she reach out to a local Scout troop. They put a plan together on how to construct the garden.
When it came to the construction of the beds, Platte and his friends got to work. They screwed together the metal frames and pieced together the connecting trellis. Once the beds were in place, they put cardboard at the bottom before filling them halfway with dried leaves and layers of newspapers — including a couple old editions of The Post and Courier. Platte said these layers were important to help the beds drain properly.
Once the papers were in place, the crew slashed open bags of soil and filled the beds the rest of the way. A week later, they returned to finish the job — filling the beds with native plants and flowers to attract the pollinators.
Volunteers put together a trellis for the new pollinator garden behind the West Ashley Branch of the Charleston County Library on Sunday, March 29, 2026.
Komlavi Adissem/Staff
“Its purpose will be to to educate the public, or anyone that walks through, on why it is important to create habitats that support bees and butterflies and birds and other local pollinators,” said LaFalce. “And also educate, you know, how you can do that, even in small ways, at home.”
She added that she hopes to introduce programming based around the beds, like hands-on gardening classes with experts, in the future.
Platte said he encourages others in the community with projects like this that need helping hands to reach out to their local Scouting America troop, especially since “there’s always people looking for Eagle Scout projects.”
His dad, Andrew Platte, said he was proud to see his son lead a crew of volunteers and that it brought him joy to see them helping out in the community.
Patrick McCormick (left) and Alex Platte work with others to lay out sheets of newspaper in the flowerbeds they built at the West ashley Branch of the Charleston County Library on Sunday, March 29, 2026.
Komlavi Adissem/Staff
“We have like 20 people out here today working on this project to help not only their fellow Scout but also our community — all the people who come visit this library to learn about local pollinators, why it’s good to have beds and grow flowers and attract insects and bugs to their yard,” he said. “And this is one of those projects the library’s gonna be able to use long-term to continue to promote this.”
So the next time you visit the West Ashley Branch, make sure to stop and smell the flowers in the pollinator garden.
Alex Platte and Andrea LaFalce stand in the completed pollinator garden at the West Ashley Branch of the Charleston County Library.
Andrew Platte/Provided
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