A just grass lawn only supports about 100 species and zero pollinators. A weedy lawn supports over 600 species with many pollinators visiting not native flowers like chickweed, clover, and dandelion, and native flowers like violets and wild strawberry. However, letting the lawn go wild is not the same as creating a healthy native ecosystem. The non-native weeds will need to be removed to create a meadow or prairie garden. In addition to letting the lawn go weedy there are many other ways to have a lawn and still protect pollinators. Use electric equipment for lawn maintenance. Gas engines can cause a lot of pollution and are very noisy, insects don’t like that. Mow less often, mow as little as possible to still keep the neighbors happy. When you do mow, mow on the high setting to leave more flowers. Mowing in the evening can also cause less harm to pollinators and not disrupt their floral visits. Wait to mow in the spring until there are plenty of other flowers blooming. Often lawn weeds are the first flowers to bloom and early spring flowers are essential for bumble bees and other spring pollinators. In general, try not to mow until at least the end of April. Leave grass clippings and leaves. The nutrients in this common yard waste are important nutrition to insects. Fall leaves are great at providing shelter to over wintering insects looking for a safe place to curl up. I shouldn’t even have to mention this but don’t use fertilizer, pesticides, or herbicides. All of these chemicals are harmful to pollinators and unnecessary if you don’t work for a golf course.

Pollinators can be found everywhere but some gardens seem to attract larger numbers. If you have pollinator envy and want to attract even more pollinators to your yard here are a few tips. Proper garden placement and plant selection can invite even more pollinators to the native garden.   Planting tips for pollinators: Plant in the sun. Pollinator bodies need sunlight to warm up their flight muscles. Plan your bloom times to be continuous throughout the year. Try to have a few species blooming at all times that pollinators are active. This includes warm winter days. Clump plants in 3 ft square or larger plantings. Larger plantings are needed to support a sustainable pollinator population. Clumping plants together makes it easier for pollinators to find their favorite plants and forage. Space your plants correctly. Plants should be close enough that they don’t leave gaps for weeds to grow but allow enough space for them to not crowd each other as they grow to full size.   Flower traits to attract certain pollinators: Bees Bees are attracted to flowers that are fragrant. They like flowers that are blue, white, yellow, violet, purple, or ultraviolet. Their flowers often have nectar guides to guide them to the center of the flower. Bees like flowers with nectar and sticky scented pollen. Bees have a variety of tongue lengths so some are adapted to visit trumpet shaped flowers. Butterflies Butterflies like bright flowers that are red, orange, yellow, or purple. Butterflies taste with their feet so scent is not as important to them. They like flowers that keep the nectar hidden within the flower so they can use their long tongue to slurp it out. Wide disk-shaped flowers give butterflies an easy landing pad for their long legs. Butterflies also use nectar guides. Moths Moths also enjoy flowers that have large landing platforms or clusters of flowers. Since moths fly at night many of their flowers open in the early morning or late evening but close for the heat of the day. Scent is important to moths so their flowers have a sweet scent in the evening. They prefer flowers that are pale in color like pink, hazy red or purple. Moths like lots of dilute nectar deep within the flower. Beetles Beetles like stinky flowers that are very fragrant and may smell like fermenting fruit or something rotten. Beetles like lots of pollen and nectar to be available. Their flowers are often dull white or green. They prefer flowers that are bowl shaped. Flies Flies like flowers that are dark brown or purple. Their flowers can smell rotten or fetid. Flies are more interested in pollen than nectar. Fly pollenated flowers are often funnel shaped.

Wasps cause fear in many people and have a reputation for being ruthless attackers. However, wasps are good insects to have in the garden since they eat pest insects, are pollinators, and they are beautiful. Usually, wasps are busy visiting flowers and provisioning their nests and will not bother humans as long as they don’t feel threatened. Parasitic wasps are solitary and are less likely to act defensively. Larval wasps are carnivorous so wasps need gardens with an abundance and variety of insects to feed their young. Parent wasps often specialize on certain types of insect prey for their babies. They will either stock their brood chambers with piles of paralyzed prey or lay their eggs directly on the prey. If you crack open a mud dauber wasps nest you will find it filled with paralyzed spiders to feed the young wasps. Adult wasps may eat insects and or nectar. Wasps are not as good at pollinating flowers as bees because they are not as hairy. Wasps have short tongues and often visit similar flowers to the types butterflies prefer. Flowers to attract wasps include the milkweeds, rattlesnake master, sunflowers, mountain mint, goldenrods, asters, and golden alexanders. I love to photograph wasps on flowers; their iridescent bodies just look stunning with the flower’s colorful petals. Social wasps like paper wasps and yellow jackets are the more worrisome type of wasp in the garden as you may happen upon a nest accidentally in the yard. Social wasps are more likely to sting as they defend their nest. Just last month I had an unfortunate experience with yellow jackets due to a misunderstanding about territory. I thought I was walking around my garden and they thought I was attacking their nest. I will try to be more alert next time to avoid future misunderstandings. Luckily, I’m not allergic and was only stung twice before I got the message to get out of their territory.

Syrphid flies, also known as hoverflies and flower flies are very effective pollinators. These flies look a lot like bees with striped yellow and black bodies. To tell a hoverfly from the bees and wasps they mimic look for only one set of wings to indicate that it is a fly. Flies have evolved their other set of wings into halteres which they use like gyroscopes to help them stabilize during flight. Hoverflies can sip nectar and feed on pollen. They rely almost exclusively on flowers for their food and are flower generalists so they can pollinate a wide array of flowers. Flowers that attract hoverflies include trillium, prairie clover, sunflowers, blazing stars, wild quinine, pawpaw, and many others. Hoverfly larva are voracious killers of aphids. When the parent is ready to lay eggs she smells out a colony of aphids or sometimes other specialist prey. The eggs are laid on the plant next to the aphid colony. The caterpillar like larvae seek out aphids and slurp them up. Once the larva has eaten enough aphids it turns into a pupa and undergoes complete metamorphosis, emerging at a hoverfly. A less often heard nick name of the hoverfly is the good news bees. Let’s help everyone know that it is good news to have these bee mimics in our gardens.

Big agriculture is taking over large pieces of our world. When land is planted in a monoculture of corn, wheat, or soy from horizon to horizon, there is no habitat left. In the past small farms had brushy hedge rows and a variety of crops that still allowed some space for insects to live. Farms benefit from a healthy ecosystem of insects including pollinators and predators that keep pest insects under control. Industrial agriculture has become toxic to insects, using neonicotinoid insecticides to eliminate all insects in the area. Healthy insect populations feed birds and many other species who rely on them as their protein source. Integrated pest management (IPM) is a system for farmers to control pests without killing everything. It involves getting to know their field and spotting pest populations before they can get out of control. Farmers can encourage predator insects like wasps by providing flowers along fence rows. Planting many smaller fields of different crops also provides more habitat for beneficial insects and less area for one pest to cause damage. You can encourage your local farmers to use IPM. Ask about their pest management practices at the farmer’s market. Shopping at the farmers market is a great way to find the best pollinator friendly produce. Small farmers are more likely to grow organic, a variety of crops, and have wildflower hedgerows, all practices that benefit pollinators. Buying local can help influence the farmers in your area to protect pollinators. Participating in a CSA (community supported agriculture) can allow you to form a close relationship with a local farmer who will listen to concerns about protecting insects. There is probably a CSA near you that will deliver a sustainable box of food to your house every week. Local small organic farms that value wildlife is the direction we need to head into the future. Encourage farmers in your area to move in a sustainable direction by supporting them with your shopping choices and sharing your message about valuing our pollinators. Remind the next farmer you see that lady bugs eat aphids for free, but only if they have insecticide free habitat.

Blue lobelia and cardinal flower are an easy plant to grow in the rain garden. Lobelias are a good starter plant for instant gratification the first year. The flower heads can be cut back after the bloom to keep a nice tidy look. Lobelias grow easily from seed and can fill in hard to reach muddy spots in the center of the garden. They look great growing among sedges or rushes. Their blue and red blooms are a perfect complement to the many yellows blooming in late summer.   Blue lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica , grows well in wet areas of the garden in full sun. It can tolerate part shade and medium garden soil. Most leaves are at the base but it will send up a 3 ft tall flower stalk. It blooms in various shades of blue July to September. Blue lobelia will tolerate deer, heavy shade, and wet soil. Provides late summer bloom to the perennial border, wild garden, native plant garden, woodland garden or naturalized planting. Also effective near ponds or streams.   Red Lobelia, also known as cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis , grows well in wet areas of the garden in full sun. It can tolerate part shade and medium garden soil. The flower spike can reach 4 ft tall, blooming scarlet red, white or rose in July to September. Cardinal flower adds late summer bloom and height to raingardens, wet meadows, along streams or ponds, and gardens as long as soils are kept uniformly moist. It will tolerate rabbit and deer.   Lobelias, especially cardinal flower can be short lived plants. They are easy to propagate from seeds, so plan to collect some seeds each year to grow more plants and keep your population thriving. Collect lobelia seeds as soon as the seed stalks dry. The seeds are a dark brown dust and are easily blown away and lost. I like to tip the seed stalk over into a white bucket and tap out the seeds. Dropping them into a white container helps to see how many have been collected. Lobelia seeds can be kept with some damp soil in the fridge over the winter to sow in trays in the spring. Or the seeds can be directly sown onto the garden by sprinkling the seeds over the soil. Because the plants grow in wet areas the seeds will move with the water so I plant them slightly uphill from where I want them to grow.   Lobelia flowers are very attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds. It looks great to plant the various colors of lobelia together creating a color variation ranging through white, pink, red, magenta, purple, blue, and light blue. The hues of color come from genetic variation and can pass on that particular shade to their offspring. Blue lobelias, especially, come in a wide range of shades of blue, purple, and white.

As a kid, there was a mulberry tree down the street that I would religiously check for fruit in the early days of summer. It had many low branches so I could climb it to collect a bucket full. If I didn’t eat all the fruit and brought some home, my mom would make mulberry cobbler served with ice cream. The delayed reward was always a challenge for me when the berries were so juicy it was hard to avoid eating them all in the tree. As an adult, I still love mulberries. Many of our parks have mulberry trees and it is a joy to bike around looking for fruit. It is easy to spot the mulberry tree along the bike trail because of the purple stain on the ground. When mulberry picking it is difficult to avoid ending up with purple fingers. I have heard that mulberry juice stain can be removed from the fingers by rubbing an unripe mulberry on them. However, I enjoy having purple fingers to remind me of the treats of summer. Our native mulberry,  Morus rubra , commonly known as red mulberry, is a stout tree that grows up to 60’ tall. “In Missouri, it typically occurs in woodlands, rocky places, pastures, fields and along roads throughout the state” (Steyermark). The early-maturing fruits of the mulberries are an important source of food to many kinds of birds. The Wood Duck, Catbird, Eastern Kingbird, Great Crested Flycatcher, Robin, Starling, and Baltimore Oriole all enjoy mulberry. Mulberry trees seem to fruit so prolifically that there are always plenty of berries left even with large flocks visiting. Not all mulberries are the same. The white mulberry, Morus alba , was introduced to the area as part of the silk trade, to feed the caterpillars. Now it is a listed Midwest Noxious Weed. The paper mulberry, Broussonetia papyrifera , is also an invasive plant. If your yard came with a mulberry, you may want to find out if it is the native or should be removed. A down side of urban mulberries is the purple bird poop on the car.

A colony of bumblebees have moved into an old bluebird house. At first, I noticed that there always seemed to be a bee sitting on top of the box watching me while I gardened. Then I started noticing bees flying in and out of the hole to visit the near by patch of flowers. Sometimes I would get swooped by a fuzzy bee if I was weeding around the base of their home but they never bothered me. Until the day I wanted to show the bees to a friend. There weren’t any bees outside the box so I decided to poke it with a stick. You should never poke bees with a stick! The bumblebees started climbing out of their front door, maybe 10 of them, and flying around. Everyone backed up, except my friend, who got closer “I think those are brown belted bumblebees, I want a photo.” After he got his photo, he turned around and then I saw a bumblebee attached to his forehead, stinger in. I went and got the antihistamines but he was mostly worried about if the bee had been injured. It turns out bumblebees have smooth stingers so they can sting without ripping their stinger out. My poor friend had a nice swollen spot between the eyes after that. So, I will try once again to resist the urge to poke things with a stick. Bumblebees can form colonies or live solo lives depending on the species. They mostly nest in the soil but can also nest in abandoned nests of rodent or birds. Holes in the gar-den soil may indicate a nest site where bees are laying eggs and provisioning the nest to hatch a new generation. Queens hibernate over winter and then select a nesting area. The colony gradually forms over the summer until the queen dies. All of her children disperse to mate and find hibernation spots. If the old nest is used again the following year it will be because a new queen has found it. Bee nests should be marked off to decrease disturbance and also prevent friends from being stung. Bumblebees are usually very docile flying teddy bears unless they feel threatened. Having a bumblebee colony in your garden is a rare treat.

Coreopsis are yellow summer bloomers. There are 6 native species of Coreopsis native to Missouri and most of them are available at garden centers that specialize in native plants. Coreopsis establish quickly and bloom the first year. They are well known for giving a reliable bloom for the first season of a new prairie planting. All coreopsis are great for attracting butterflies and bees to their flowers and many birds including gold finch to their seed heads.   Plains coreopsis, Coreopsis tinctoria , looks great in the prairie garden. Annual yellow flower with red centers bloom June to September. A delicate looking plant growing to 2 to 4 feet tall. Grows best in full sun and dry to medium soil. It will tolerate drought, clay, dry, shallow, and rocky soil. It attracts birds and butterflies and survives deer. Good plant for areas with poor, dry soils. Excellent in large plantings.   Lanceleaf coreopsis, Coreopsis lanceolata , is a perennial sprawling 1ft tall plant with 2 ft flower stalks. It has yellow blooms May to July. Coreopsis grows best in full sun and dry to medium soil. It can tolerate drought, dry, shallow, and rocky soil. It attracts butterflies and birds and survives deer. Grows well in rock gardens, meadows or prairies. This is a good plant for areas with poor, dry soils. Self-seeding tendencies may need to be kept in check to maintain a more formal appearance.   I have a swath of lancelef coeopsis across the front of my garden and it reliably attracts large flocks of golf finches each year. I love to watch them as they balance of the stems to peck out the seeds. I’m always sure to collect some seeds for myself to save for next year. I snip off the seed heads into a paper bag and then break them up after they have dried for a few weeks. The seeds do not need any special treatment and can be scattered immediately or kept dry and cool to be planted the next spring.   Coreopsis are sometimes confused with bidens which also have yellow disk blooms at the same time. Bidens are called beggars ticks which coreopsis are referred to as tick seed. However, Bidens seeds have little barbs that stick to your clothes while coreopsis do not. Coreopsis gets the name tickseed from the tinny brown seeds that are about the size and color of seed ticks.   Coreopsis fill an ecosystem role as early establishers in disturbed soils. They spread and grow easily from seeds. They bloom in the first year and produce lots of seeds. The plants are short lived but can self perpetuate with their seeds. Because of their live fast attitude they have trouble competing with some of the other prairie plants that take more time to put down big root systems. As garden plantings mature there may be less coreopsis each year.

The earliest fruit in my yard is the wild strawberry, Fragaria virginiana . Following the white blooms, I start checking my patch regularly starting on Mother’s Day. If the strawberries have yellow flowers, they are a non-native mock strawberry, Potentilla indica . The mock strawberry fruits don’t have as much flavor so I pull them out to make space for the native. Wild strawberries are small but sweet. The fragrance of the ripe fruit can lead you to them. Strawberries are the first edible fruit to ripen in May and are usually fruiting heavily in June. Collecting strawberries can be a lot of stooping and looking under leaves. Sometimes the rabbits and turtles beat me too them as they have more patience than I do. Native Americans call strawberries "oteagh-minick" (heart berry) due to their heart-shaped appearance. In 1794 Loskiel wrote that “Strawberries grow so large and in such abundance that whole plains are covered with them as with a fine scarlet cloth.” The scientific name Fragaria refers to the fragrance of the plant. Thoreau compares the smell to the “sweet scent of the earth”, the essence of spring. Wild strawberry can be used as a fast-spreading ground cover. It grows prolifically in part shade with rich soil, growing quickly with big leaves. Although the plant seems healthy, shade growth produced less flowers and fruit. To get earlier and better fruits give the plant full sun and well drained soil. These plants will have smaller leaves and spread more slowly but fruit better. When looking for strawberry to harvest in nature, check in sandy rocky areas with good sun exposure. I find them often along gravel roads that have been cut into a sandy hillside. They also grow well along the edge of driveways, roads, sidewalks, and foundations.  Wild strawberry is a rapidly spreading groundcover that grows by rhizomes. It is easy to propagate the plants by cutting off the runners and planting them into freshly cleared soil. Wild strawberry leaves are green through the winter and young strawberry leaves turn red in fall through winter. It is not often that I find enough strawberries to have a supply to cook with. Usually, I eat them all while collecting. When I do have a small abundance, I like to eat them on my cereal. If I have a large abundance, which has only happened once, I make jam. I love strawberry jam! I would like to some day make dehydrated strawberries, maybe this spring I will give it a try.

There are two species of golden Alexander commonly found in garden centers. The common golden Alexander, Zizia aurea , and the less common heart leaved golden Alexander, Zizia aptera . The difference between the two is that aptera has compound leaves at the base while aurea has simple basal leaves. Aurea also prefers drier soils. Zizia is in the carrot family which includes dill, parsley, carrot, celery, fennel, and cilantro.   Shade gardens are a common place to find golden Alexander. In the wild they are common in moist rich woodlands, bottomland forests, mesic upland forests, upland prairies, glades, savannas, banks of streams, rivers, and spring, ledges, tops of bluffs, fens, but also along roadsides. Moist rich soil is best but they are very resilient and can survive harsh conditions. In ideal conditions their 2 foot tall and wide dome of foliage is green all summer long even in drought.   They bloom yellow in spring April–June. Seeds ripen in mid summer when the seeds turn brown and easily shatter from the stalk. They and are easy to collect to share with friends. Collected seeds need to be stored in the fridge in moist soil for a minimum of two months or directly sown outside over the winter. Seeds not collected or eaten by birds are highly likely to germinate nearby. Populations of golden Alexander can spread quickly and fill in a new garden. Golden Alexander is a good choice for woodland restoration after invasive removal because of it’s prolific spread by seed and hardy nature.   The flat-topped flower clusters are visited by many bees, flies, butterflies, and other insects. Zizia is the host plant for the black swallowtail butterfly, papilo polyxenes , and for the specialist mining bee, Andrena ziziae . The golden Alexander mining bee is a tiny native bee that digs out a burrow in the soil. Look for pencil size holes in bare soil near the Zizia plant to find these fuzzy native bees provisioning their nests.   The Black Swallowtail is a large black butterfly with yellow, blue, and red markings and swallow tails. They only lay their eggs on members of the carrot family of which golden Alexander is our native representative. Females can lay 400 eggs but only about 4 of them will survive predation. Young caterpillars are black with orange spots and bumpy. Older caterpillars are black and yellow with green stripes. In Missouri black swallow tails have two generations per year in April-June and in late summer. They overwinter as a chrysalis attached to a stem. Bringing the chrysalis inside may cause it to emerge early before there is any nectar available to eat.   Golden Alexander is a great addition to any shade garden. If it becomes too aggressive, it is easy to rip out. Control it’s spread by collecting the seeds and spreading them in the back alley. I love having this plant in my yard for the beautiful flowers that attract so many pollinators and the dancing swallowtail butterflies that grow on it. It is a great plant for a beginner garden or a neglected corner.

Plant growth habits can sometimes come as a surprise. Plants may start to spread more than there is space for. How can unwanted spread be prevented? What should be mowed around, what blows in the wind, what needs competition, what will move downhill. With the numbers of native plants available in stores today, it would be impossible to list each one here but I will describe a few of the frequent offenders.   Ashy sunflower spreads into large colonies using underground runners. Since the plant is tall, it can over shadow smaller plants while also crowding them out underground. To keep this plant in check, plant it next to barriers like sidewalks or walls. Or be prepared to trench around it each year. Many sunflowers like plants in helianthus, silphium, and heliopsis have this characteristic of forming colonies by expanding their root system. Because of the spreading issue I like to add these plants after other plants have become established and staked out their own turf. The sunflowers also make nice prairie plantings when mixed in with other equally aggressive species.   Wild plum really wants to be a shrubbery. As the roots spread out, they form root sprouts that can come up over 10 feet away from the parent plant. Cutting off these sprouts often leads to even more sprouts coming up. Digging up the sprouts can damage the roots system and they often do not transplant successfully. Plant shrubs like plum, dogwood, hazelnut, willow, and sumac in areas where their root system will not be disturbed so they are less likely to produce suckers. Shrubby garden borders are great places for this type of plant.   Asters and goldenrods spread not only by spreading their roots but also by seeds. Aromatic aster is great at expanding its colony by roots while Drumund aster is better at spreading it’s seeds far and wide. Field goldenrod will send out long rope like roots and pop up a new plant every foot along it. When pulling up asters and goldenrods, make sure to dig down and get the whole root out. Seed spread can be limited by collecting the stalks before they ripen. Seeds need bare soil to germinate so minimizing bare soil near seedy plants can give them less spots to sprout. Asters and goldenrods look great in large clumps and are necessary for fall pollinators.   Joe pye makes a lot of seeds. Since it is such a tall plant, most gardeners can not work with the random volunteers of this giant plant all over the garden. Although seeds are important for birds, this is one of the plants that I dead head to prevent hours of work later weeding out the babies. After the flowers fade there is a window of time to get out in the garden and cut the seed heads off. Other plants that need their seeds clipped are rattlesnake master, and culvers roots. I like to plant these three together so I can maintain them together. Germinating seedlings should be pulled as soon as you can before they develop a deep tap root.   Blue lobelia makes thousands of dust like seeds that float on water. This means that baby blue lobelias will pop up anywhere downstream from their parent plant. The water dispersal technique is also used by many of the sedges. To prevent the spread, place these plants at the lowest point in the yard or block seed flow with a small dam. Planning for these water loving plants to move downstream can be used to your advantage by planting them upstream from where you want to planting to be densest.   Understanding how a plant will spread can be used to the gardener’s advantage when planning a garden. Plants that form colonies quickly can be given the amount of space they will need and use less plants to do it. Plants that are tall and aggressive can be paired with likeminded plants so they can keep each other in check. Very aggressive plants can be given firm borders, like sidewalks. Avoid using fertilizer on native plant beds to limit weedy growth. While this information might require some extra research, it is worth it in effort saved fighting the natural tendencies of a species with wanderlust.