Island Life

Ortley Beach Beauty: Three Years of Residents Sprucing Up the Oceanfront (Before and After)

by
Daniel Nee
June 25, 2025

The Ortley Beach oceanfront pollinator garden near 5th Avenue. (Photo: Sharon Quilter-Colucci)

It’s been two years since a group of Ortley Beach residents, initially sponsored by a grant from New Jersey American Water, began planting and maintaining a garden at the oceanfront.

Now in its third season, the garden along the boardwalk at 5th Avenue (and northward) has grown, filling in what used to be an area of gravel, sand and the occasional strand of ragweed. Sharon Quilter-Colucci, who has been active with the Ortley Beach Voters and Taxpayers Association and a number of volunteer efforts in the neighborhood, has kept the garden project going for three seasons, and shared a few “before and after” photos with Shorebeat to highlight the work of her small army of green-thumbed volunteers who keep the oceanfront looking its best.

The Ortley Beach oceanfront pollinator garden near 5th Avenue. (Photo: Sharon Quilter-Colucci)

In addition to the beautification angle, the plantings also serve as a pollinator garden, attracting monarch butterflies each fall as they migrate south for the winter. During the summer, with flowers in bloom, the plants have spread and gotten thicker, helping to stabilize the innermost portion of the dune and promote native plant species on the barrier island.

“The timing was perfect for this garden to be born,” she told Shorebeat when the garden first emerged. “When walking to the beach, [I] spotted the sand and weeds which existed between the parking lot and the boardwalk. It turns out this particular patch of weeds bothered quite a few residents and beach goers. It was unanimously embraced as a project by the Environmental Commission.”

The Ortley Beach oceanfront pollinator garden near 5th Avenue. (Photo: Sharon Quilter-Colucci)

Pollinator gardens are particularly good additions to the Shore area. They attract bees to pollinate naturally (rather than hanging around trash cans), and then go on to provide a vital source of nectar for butterflies in the fall as they travel from Canada to South America. Meanwhile, about 35 percent of all food crops require pollinators to exist, and some pollinating species are being added to the endangered list.

Here are a few photos of the garden’s humble beginnings:

New flowers at the pollinator garden at Harding Avenue in Ortley Beach, April 2024. (Photo: Toms River Township)

Volunteers work on the pollinator garden in Ortley Beach, N.J., Summer 2023. (Photo: Sharon Quilter Colucci)

The site of a future pollinator garden along the oceanfront in Ortley Beach, May 2023. (Photo: Shorebeat)

The grant that – literally – served as seed money was formally awarded to the Toms River Environmental Commission, one of five projects to receive funding from the water company.