#Planting for Pollinators

[netpurlb6513]

🌼 Butterfly & Plant Magic: Attract Pollinators to Your Garden Naturally 🦋

Nature is struggling, and pollinators are disappearing. But you can make a difference—starting in your own backyard. 🏡🌿

Here's how to turn your outdoor space into a haven for butterflies and hummingbirds—without chemicals or fancy tools.

🌸 Why Pollinators Matter

Pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds help plants grow, reproduce, and feed us. Without them, flowers won’t bloom, fruits won’t form, and ecosystems collapse.

🌱 Steps to Create a Pollinator Paradise

✅ Plant Nectar-Rich Flowers Choose plants like Zinnias, Salvia, Bee Balm, and Coneflowers. These flowers are packed with sweet nectar and are super attractive to pollinators.

✅ Use Native Plants Native flowers like Milkweed and Black-eyed Susans thrive with less water and support local species like Monarchs.

✅ Avoid Pesticides Skip the chemicals. They harm pollinators more than pests. Use natural alternatives like neem oil or companion planting (e.g., marigolds with veggies).

✅ Provide Water and Shelter A shallow dish with pebbles works great for thirsty butterflies. Trees, shrubs, and even tall grass give shelter and protection.

✅ Plant for All Seasons Include early bloomers like Crocus and late bloomers like Asters to provide food year-round.

🐛 Did You Know?

Monarch butterflies only lay eggs on Milkweed. No milkweed = no Monarchs. Plant some and give them a safe home. 🌿🧡

🌼 Best Plants to Add Right Now

Milkweed

Zinnias

Salvia

Lupine

Cosmos

Black-eyed Susan

Bee Balm

Sunflowers

🌻 Your garden can help save butterflies. It starts with just one flower. 🌸

[rebeccathenaturalist]

A caveat to this study: the researchers were primarily looking at insect pollinator biodiversity. Planting a few native wildflowers in your garden will not suddenly cause unusual megafauna from the surrounding hinterlands to crowd onto your porch.

That being said, this study backs up Douglas Tallamy's optimistic vision of Homegrown National Park, which calls for people in communities of all sizes to dedicate some of their yard (or porch or balcony) to native plants. This creates a patchwork of microhabitats that can support more mobile insect life and other small beings, which is particularly crucial in areas where habitat fragmentation is severe. This patchwork can create migration corridors, at least for smaller, very mobile species, between larger areas of habitat that were previously cut off from each other.

It may not seem like much to have a few pots of native flowers on your tiny little balcony compared to someone who can rewild acres of land, but it makes more of a difference than you may realize. You may just be creating a place where a pollinating insect flying by can get some nectar, or lay her eggs. Moreover, by planting native species you're showing your neighbors these plants can be just as beautiful as non-native ornamentals, and they may follow suit.

In a time when habitat loss is the single biggest cause of species endangerment and extinction, every bit of native habitat restored makes a difference.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[bethanythebogwitch]

The AUDACITY of venus fly traps to expect pollinators to help them reproduce after spending all their time eating bugs

[natureisthegreatestartist]

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Saturday 10 May 2025

Scientists are still divided on how best to categorise Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) species, as they can be broken down into microspecies based on their DNA. But at this time of year the Orkney landscape has fields full of them creating a great food source especially for the bumblebees.

Jill Raggett

[mindblowingscience]

Bacteria that live in soil and help roots fix nitrogen can boost certain plants' capacity to reproduce, according to an article published in the American Journal of Botany describing a study of this mechanism in Chamaecrista latistipula, a legume belonging to the Fabaceae family, which includes beans and peas. Bacteria in the soil enhance the attractiveness of the plant's flowers to pollinators via a type of relationship known as mutualism that is widespread in plants and animals. Microorganisms such as bacteria or fungi contribute to and benefit from mutualistic relationships with plants, whereby both sides obtain more nutrients or reproduce more vigorously, for example.

Continue Reading.

[julianplum]

🪻🌱🐝 💜 🌿 ✨ // violets & violet miner bees // part of my natives + pollinators series // gouache on paper

tiny violet miner bees (Andrena violae) are a specific pollinator: they pollinate wood & dog violets in the Northeast, and show a strong preference for blue violets. letting your grassy yard rewild itself and grow violets every spring not only lets you make violet syrup, it also gives violet miner bees their most important food source and increases local pollinator diversity.

[biophonies]

a new shirt to say that fire and the ecosystems of so-called California are inextricably tied.

in the wake of the most devastating Los Angeles wildfires to date, this is a wearable reminder to all that such harm is preventable, to support your local indigenous communities, to educate yourself on indigenous land stewardship practices, and to see how you can help heal the land. <3

100% of proceeds go to an Altadena family that is working to rebuild after losing everything in the Eaton fire of 2025. Read more for a fun fact about these plants~

Though there is no such thing as a fireproof plant, the species repped on this shirt are fire resistant, drought tolerant species native to so-called "California". they are excellent for native wildlife and pollinators, and endorsed for landscaping use by Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego county fire departments.

[reasonsforhope]

"Next Monday [6/17/24] is the start of National Pollinator Awareness Week, and one Colorado advocacy group is hosting a flower planting drive to rewild Colorado’s meadows, gardens, and just maybe, its children too.

Created by constitutional amendment in 1992, Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) is a state-funded independent board that invests a portion of Colorado Lottery proceeds to help preserve and enhance the state’s parks, trails, wildlife, rivers, and open spaces.

This year, GOCO’s offshoot Generation Wild is distributing over 100,000 free packets of wildflower seeds to collection points at museums, Denver Parks and Rec. offices, and libraries all over the state to encourage kids and families to plant the seeds in their backyards.

The Save the Bees! initiative aims to make the state more beautiful, more ecologically diverse, and more friendly to pollinators.

According to a new report from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, 20% of Colorado’s bumblebees are now at risk of extinction. Even in a small area like a backyard, planting wildflowers can make a positive impact on the local ecosystem and provide native bees with a healthy place to live.

“The Western Bumblebee population has declined in Colorado by 72%, and we’re calling on kids across Colorado to ‘bee’ the change,” said GOCO Executive Director Jackie Miller.

Named after Generation Wild’s official mascot “Wilder,” the Wilderflower Seed Mix was developed in partnership with Applewood Seed Co. and packets are now available for pickup at designated partner sites including more than 80 Little Free Library boxes.

By distributing 100,000 Wilderflower packets, Generation Wild is providing more than 56 million seeds for planting in every nook and cranny of the state. All seeds are regionally-native to Colorado, which is important for sustaining the living landscape of bees, birds, and other animals.

Additionally, by using flower species adapted to the Mile High climate, landscapers and gardeners need to use less water than if they were tending non-native plants.

“Applewood Seed Co. was excited to jump in and help Generation Wild identify a seed mix that is native to the Colorado region and the American West, containing a diversity of flower species to attract and support Colorado’s pollinator populations,” stated Norm Poppe, CEO of Applewood Seed Co. “We hope efforts like this continue to educate the public on pollinator conservation and the need to protect our native bees and butterflies.”

Concluding her statement Miller firmly stated that children grow up better outside, and if you or a parent you know agree with her, all the information on how to participate in Save the Bees! can be found here on their website, including a map showing all the local pickup points for the Wilderflower Seed Packets."

-via Good News Network, June 13, 2024

[typhlonectes]

Plant a Bee-friendly (and butterfly friendly) garden!

See higher quality image and find out more:

PollinatorGardenBrochure.pdf (sierraclub.org)

[hcnnibal]

Sorry if this has been asked before but ... do you have any gardening tricks, tips, advice? I saw that you do hydroponic gardening, so you have any other tips? Your fruits and herbs are so beautiful :)

lately we’ve just been starting them indoors and letting them go outside once the weather is nice and we’ve had pretty decent results :D

my little propagation station :D every once in awhile someone goes crazy

pretty decent harvest every year tho

we leave them alone and let them do their thing for the most part, the only thing i like, actively do is companion planting and crop rotation

alliums for pest control, majoram for better tasting tomatoes, oregano for ground cover, plenty of flowers for pollinators, peas or beans for nitrates, carrots to loosen up the soil, etc etc

[scribefindegil]

I'm so emotional about the thousands of years of work humanity has put into plant domestication and breeding, and I'm also so emotional about all the important work that's still being done today! With the rise of monocultures, most people don't know about the sheer breadth of varieties that exist for different food crops; there's such a focus on the cultivars most suited to industrial growth, harvesting, and shipping, which leads to valuing things like uniform growth and maturation times and the ability to be shipped long distances most highly, often to the detriment of flavor and genetic diversity.

But all these specialized varieties DO exist, and more are being developed every year! There are organizations like the Seed Savers Exchange that are dedicated to the preservation of historic heirloom cultivars that might otherwise have been lost, sometimes reintroducing a variety because a single family or individual happened to have maintained the seed. And there are people, ranging from large-scale agricultural University breeding projects to backyard gardeners, who are creating new varieties—new colors and flavors and textures, plants adapted to harsher weather or shorter growing seasons or with resistance to common pests!

If you're a gardener, it's absolutely worth it to look into what's being developed for your specific region. Even if you're not, buying local produce may let you try some more unique and locally-adapted varieties!

And if you save seeds, you can help develop your own varieties by selecting plants that have the features you like best and growing out the seed from those! You may not have the resources to trial many different plants (and probably can't do much with corn unless you have a whole field), but every time you intentionally save seed you are making a selection. The Experimental Farm Network sells a number of "grex" or "landrace" seed packets, where some traits have been selected for but there is still a great deal of genetic diversity and each plant will be slightly different. You can keep letting them intermix, or you can choose your favorite plants and work on stabilizing your own variety! And then, because usually if you save seed you end up with much more than you can use yourself, you can share it with your friends! Join in the ancient human tradition and make new plants!

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Pollinators come in a variety of forms. While people tend to be most familiar with bees and butterflies, there are numerous other animals from beetles to birds to bats--and now wolves--that also facilitate the pollination of various plants.

This, to me, just illustrates yet again why the removal of even one native species from the ecosystem it evolved in can have wide-ranging repercussions. While we are continuing to learn all sorts of amazing ways that species depend on each other, we've barely scratched the surface of what there is to know.

At a time when extinction is accelerating due to factors ranging from habitat loss and fragmentation to invasive species to the ever-expanding effects of anthropogenic climate change, it is even more crucial that we protect all extant species, even those that are not as charismatic or high-profile. When we lose a species forever, the ecosystem loses all the benefits that species provided--and we lose the opportunity to learn about those complex relationships.

While those responsible for the greatest amount of damage are largely concerned with next quarter's profits and what they can milk out of "natural resources" before they disappear, those of us intimately acquainted with the workings of the natural world know that there is much more value to all of us in preserving and restoring as much of our planet's natural systems as possible, not merely for abstract understanding of natural history, but the ongoing maintenance of every living being's life support system.

[views-in-bloom]

🌸🐝

[margocooper]

Блошница дизентерийная, или Блошница болотная, или Блошница проносная (лат. Pulicária dysentérica).Сентябрь 24. Common Fleabane. September 24.