crazynativeplantwitch

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Bee Balm aka Wild Burgamot

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Ohio Spiderwort

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Buttonbush

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Scatlet Rosemallow

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Bees

When the average person is asked to picture a pollinator, a bee will be the first thing that comes to mind, and for good reason.  They are powerhouses of pollination and that is what makes it so scary that on average a beekeeper in the United States will lose over one third of their colonies each year.  Now I would like to point out that my source for this information was published 5 years ago, and their sources are at least ten years old.  So, I did a little digging because my pessimistic ass was sure that that number was probably higher by now.  I found this site which has a chart of beekeeper losses in the United States, and just at a glance.   Yep… I was right.   Now there are several contributing factors to this decline.  Before I get to that though I want to bring something up.  All of the information I have just talked about applies to imported European honeybees who have humans with vested interest in their well being taking care of them….  So how do you think wild native bees are faring?

If you guessed worse than honeybees give yourself a cookie because you are right!  Whereas honeybees’ biggest killer is a parasite known as the varroa mite native bees are on the decline mainly due to major habitat loss.  That being said, there are other contributing factors to both declines such as pesticide exposer, and lack of diverse pollen sources that leaves bees more susceptible to diseases.

Information for this post came from

“Pollinators of Iowa” published by Iowa Living Roadway Trust Fund in 2019

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Sources:

The Iowa Wildflowers app:

This app can be downloaded at the Google app store. It has helped me a lot with plant identification and has a lot of information about each plant. It also shows which plants are native and which are not. Below is the current icon of the app.

Iowa Living Roadway Trust Fund:

This is a valuable and FREE source of information. I mainly use their "Pollinators in Iowa" booklet. However, they have made several booklets and posters that can be downloaded here:

Prairie Moon Nursery:

This company specializes in growing and selling plants that are native to the midwest. You might be wondering why I have this as a source of information. Because a place that is primarily teying to sell you their product has NO BUISNESS being as informative about native plants and how they help the ecosystem as this company is. I have killed countless hours browzing this site and going through their pages of information about specific plants! Their Q&A on each plant is also very informative and you can tell that they are passionate about what they do. I cannot recommend this site enough and if I gave you a list of every pro from it this section would be a page long.

Beeinformed.org:

While I haven't gone over this source with as much thoroughness as some of my other sources. I personally am pretty sure their information is good because they are citing their sources properly instead of being lazy like some smartass on tumblr who posts a link and lets her readers figure out the rest.

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Pollinator Decline

Pollinator decline is not a new subject.  By now we all know how they play a key role in food production.  If they dissapear, we will be facing cost inflation, starvation, chaos, and all of that fun mad max post apocalypse crap.  But there is still a way to help.  Through gardening and transforming your landscape into safe habitat for pollinators.

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So.... What is this blog?

Basically I will be talking about native plants from my area and how to use them in a garden setting to help conservation efforts and perhaps even combat climate change. Please note that I live in Iowa. A midwestern state in the United States or America so the majority of my blog will be talking about plants in relation to that area. For example Crown Vetch is native to the Mediterranean but considered an invasive here in Iowa. Therefore I will be talking about it as an invasive plant. While my blog will focus on things in relation to Iowa some of the general information might be helpful to know about.

Sources I use and would recommend:

Pollinator Decline: