Most pollinator garden guides are for those who have the space, time, and energy to implement a large garden into a backyard or front lawn. Those of us who rent, have small yards, or can’t commit as much time to gardening are normally left out of the conversation – until now! Apartment dwellers and busy homeowners alike have the ability to provide important resources to pollinators through container gardening! Below we outline some reasons why container gardening is important, give some gardening tips, list fantastic native pollinator plants, and provide links to inspiring resources to help turn your porch or balcony into an beautiful pollinator habitat!
If you live in a large, uniform area such as a rental complex or a grass-turf suburbia, it is all the more important to provide native habitat! These areas are full of concrete and frequently-mowed grass, making the area inhospitable to most pollinators. By growing a container garden, you contribute an important “stepping stone” for pollinators by providing them with nectar and pollen resources to help them move through your neighborhood.
Balcony gardens are inspiring
Have you ever looked at your neighbor’s porch or balcony and been inspired to add solar lights or a hammock to your own? You can do the same by inspiring your neighbors to start a pollinator garden! Apartment balconies are highly visible, giving you the perfect opportunity to showcase your efforts and spread the word about how your neighbors can help pollinators. The more people providing native habitat in your area, the more likely you will be able to start enjoying butterfly and bee sightings!
They are great learning experiences
Everyone starts somewhere. It can be daunting to start growing plants you are unfamiliar with. Additionally, you may be aware of topics surrounding native and nonnative plants, invasive plants, local ecotype… the list goes on. How “correct” do you have to be to get started? In my opinion, it is a great loss to miss out on a learning experience about native plants due to the fact that you were afraid of not being “correct” enough. The more you try, the more you learn, and pollinators desperately need more people learning about them and the plants they rely on if they are going to survive in the future. Also, because you will be growing plants in a container and trying to incorporate native plants, it is less likely that a plant would escape its container and cause issues. Caution is important and it shows that you care, but don’t be afraid, do what you can, and use this article as a starting point to get a pollinator container garden going!
Container Garden Tips:
Plan Ahead and Make Room
Start planning for next year’s container garden now, so you can get a jump on ordering seed or plugs! Also, use pots measuring about 18 inches wide and 18 inches deep or larger; prairie plants have deep roots.
Think Diversity
Provide a range of bloom times, colors, flower shapes, and plant structures to support as many pollinators as possible. This also provides you with a beautiful, dynamic garden space throughout the growing season. It may also increase your chances at seeing polliantors!
Grow Native Plants
Incorporating plants native to Iowa is fantastic, but utilizing native plants with a local ecotype is even better. Local ecotype means that the plant (and its resulting seed) was grown within a certain area, making it well-adapted to that area. To find local ecotype seed, find nurseries and greenhouses within 150-200 miles of your home, and ask where they source their seed.
Provide with Patience
It can take a few years for a native plant to bloom if started from seed, whether planted in a pot or the ground. This makes creating a native garden very rewarding! If starting from seed sounds daunting, plan your plant list now, and use plugs instead of seeds for the next growing season. This route is more expensive but gives you a nearly instant pollinator garden.
Heel and Save Seeds
Successfully overwintering grown native plants in pots is difficult; research the term “heeling” for info on how to overwinter pots with more success, or overwinter them in an unheated garage. You could also donate your potted plants to someone who can plant them in the ground in early fall. Remember you can collect seeds from your plants to use next year.
Leave it for the Bees
In the fall, leave potted plants outdoors until November and do not cut back dried-up vegetation. Place pots back outside in April, and only cut back stems and leaves when nightly temperatures consistently reach 50°F. Doing this increases the survival of any pollinators that may have decided to nest in your plants; it gives them a chance to emerge and start the next generation of pollinators!
Pollinator Plants for Container Gardens:
The following plants are mainly tallgrass prairie plants native to Story County, Iowa, and grouped by sunlight requirements. Remember to never take plants from natural areas in an attempt to transplant them into your garden. Natural and wild areas are increasingly scarce, making the plants in them vitally important to pollinators and other wildlife!
Full Sun:
The following native plant species are for balconies and patios that receive full sun during the day. They are also mostly tolerant of drier soils, which is handy as container plants in sunny areas tend to dry out faster than shady areas.
Common Name
Bloom Period
Butterfly weed
June – August
Species Name
Details
Asclepias tuberosa
Supports monarch butterfly caterpillars
Common Name
Bloom Period
Narrow-leaved purple coneflower
July
Species Name
Details
Echinacea angustifolia
Local alternative to Echinacea purpurea
Common Name
Bloom Period
Bee balm
July – August
Species Name
Details
Monarda fistulosa
Bee and butterfly magnet
Common Name
Bloom Period
Rattlesnake master
July – August
Species Name
Details
Eryngium yuccifolium
Adds unique shape to garden, supports many kinds of pollinators
Common Name
Bloom Period
Dwarf blazing star
July – September
Species Name
Details
Liatris cylindracea
Attracts butterflies and bees very well
Common Name
Bloom Period
Little bluestem
Warm-season grass
Species Name
Details
Schizachyrium scoparium
Silvery-green bunch grass; turns orange with hints of purple in fall. Supports butterfly caterpillars.
Partial Sun:
The following native plant species are for balconies and patios that receive partial sun during the day. They are also tolerate medium to wet soil. Most pollinator plants love full sun; the following plants require sunlight and tolerate some shade. If you have shade for a majority of the day, you could try researching native woodland flowers.
Common Name
Bloom Period
Wild geranium
May
Species Name
Details
Geranium maculatum
This flower blooms before most, making it an important pollinator food source in spring
Common Name
Bloom Period
Golden Alexander
May – June
Species Name
Details
Zizia aurea
As a member of the carrot family, it provides for the black swallowtail butterfly’s caterpillars
Common Name
Bloom Period
Black-eyed Susan
June – July
Species Name
Details
Rudbeckia hirta
Provides great landing pad for butterflies
Common Name
Bloom Period
Great lobelia
August – September
Species Name
Details
Lobelia siphilitica
It’s tube shape and blue color make it a favorite among bumble bees
Common Name
Bloom Period
Showy goldenrod
August – October
Species Name
Details
Solidago speciosa
Can bloom into October; important food source for late-season pollinators
Common Name
Bloom Period
Bicknell’s sedge
Fruits in late May
Species Name
Details
Carex bicknellii
Provides great cover for all pollinators; possible host plant of some declining butterfly species
Inspirational Resources!
The Missouri Botanical Garden showcases examples of different pot designs and teaches how to expertly arrange native species together to create a beautifully unique and cohesive look:
Build your own personalized container plant list by finding plant species native to your county at this URL. This website is a digitized version of the book Prairie Plants of Iowa (published 1999) with text and maps by Paul Christiansen and drawings by Mark Müller:
During our April meeting while discussing the bridge in Tama, we had a conversation about James Marsh and his Rainbow Arch Bridge designs along the Lincoln Highway. So I reached out to our resident experts, Bob and Joyce Ausberger for a history lesson on these bridges and their significance to the Lincoln Highway.
James Marsh was the builder and promoter of several Rainbow Arch Bridges. He graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. His company was N.E. Marsh & Son Construction Company in Des Moines. The bridge designs were formed by the conjunction of new technology, and reinforced concrete. The previous stone bridges were more expensive and labor-intensive.
By 1893 Marsh had constructed numerous bridges in Iowa – a three-mile elevated railroad structure in Sioux City and three bridges in Des Moines. Similar bridges were built in Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado, and five other western states.
Patent Photo credit: wikipedia.org
Photo credit: bubbasgarage.com
The Marsh Rainbow Arch Bridge (known as Beaver Creek Bridge) is located on the Lincoln Highway on the border of Greene and Boone County in Ogden at 210th Street and was built in 1919. This bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
Photo credit: Garry Gardner/wikipedia.org
Photo credit: John Zeller/Iowa DOT
Numerous single-span concrete arches can be found in rural Iowa, but multiple-span examples are rare. Moreover, among those concrete arches remaining in the state, the Eureka Mill Bridge is one of the earliest such arch structures designed by the state highway commission. We are fortunate to have these existing samples of these two types of bridges still remaining
Did you know that National Moth Week is celebrated in July? Read up on Iowa’s native moths and butterflies to be ready to celebrate Moth Week right, from July 23rd to 31st!
Iowa is home to about 110 butterfly species, and over 2,000 moth species! Butterflies and moths are related: both are in the insect order Lepidoptera, which roughly translates to “scaled wing”. Most of us think of moths as the ugly stepsisters of butterflies, but this is not true! In fact, I would call moths the sleeping beauties of our natural world (they are beauties that are often active while we sleep). Don’t continue to sleep on the incredible beauty of Iowa moths, and get to know our butterflies better!
Giant Silk Moths If you’re lucky enough to have seen a luna moth, then you’ve seen a member of the giant silk moth group, called the Saturniidae family (Saturnia is the daughter of Saturn in Greek mythology). This group also includes the cecropia moth, named after Cecrops, a half-man-half-snake king in Greek mythology. If you squint at the top outer corner of the cecropia moth’s front wing by the dark eyespot, you can see what appears to be a profile of a snake’s head. Lastly, the luna and cecropia moths don’t eat as adults – they have no mouths! They only eat as caterpillars, which is common in the mysterious world of moths.
Hawk Moths and Hummingbird Moths Aptly named, these moths look and fly like humming birds, hovering while drinking nectar with their straw-like mouths (called a proboscis). Some also mimic bumble bees, like the snowberry clearwing pictured on the right! Belonging to the family Sphingidae, these moths can be diurnal (day-active) or nocturnal (night-active). Some species don’t eat as adults. For those that do, they are important pollinators for prairie orchid and primrose species!
Owlet and Underwing Moths Most of these moths are the experts of disguise, using drab colors on their front wings to blend in with bark and dead leaves. They are in the family Noctuidae, the largest family of moths in North America. Underwing moths, however, have a secret weapon: their back wings can have bright colors that hide under the front wings, and can be flashed to startle a predator during escape!
Tiger Moths When wooly bear caterpillars mature, they are called tiger moths, also known as the family Erebidae. These moths can have bright colors decorated with geometric lines, consequently nicknamed “tiger” moths. I saw the tiger moth pictured here the last week of June at Ada Hayden park! This species of tiger moth is called the “reversed haploa moth” due to the fact that it has two color variations: either geometric lines on the front wings with plain white back wings, or the reverse: plain white front wings with geometric back wings.
Brush-footed Butterflies The family Nymphalidae, commonly called the brush-footed group, is one of the most popular groups of butterflies with monarchs, regal fritillaries, and painted ladies included in its ranks. Why are they called brush-foots? Their front legs are very small, and kept close to their body (similar to t-rex dinosaurs in my opinion). These front legs aren’t used for walking and are basically reduced to little “brushes”.
Swallowtails While one of the most entrancing butterflies, swallowtails are tough; they overwinter here in Iowa! As caterpillars, this group (which is the family Papilionidae) spin their chrysalises and wait out the winter under dead leaves, giving us another reason to leave areas in our yard undisturbed this fall. The caterpillars of this group can just as awe-inspiring, with some having bright green colors, or eyespots that can make them look like snakes to scare predators away!
Whites and Sulphurs This group of butterflies has a charming behavior; they like puddles! Belonging to the Pieridae family, these butterflies are the most likely to be found in a “puddling” group, sucking up extra nutrients in the water. Adult butterflies appear white, yellow, orange, and sometimes have black markings. One of the coolest butterflies in this group is the Olympia marble, a species of special concern in Iowa due to declining numbers. Just look at its metallic markings against snow-white wings!
Blues, Coppers, and Hairstreaks These tiny butterflies are also called gossamer wings, due to the beautiful shimmer that reflects off their wings! These butterflies are a part of the family Lycaenidae, and also love visiting puddles, so don’t let their looks fool you; they are hardcore. Continuing that thought: the species Satyrium edwardsii, or Edward’s hairstreak, has some wild behavior as a caterpillar. At night it feeds on oak leaves, and during the day it rests in active ant nests for protection! This species is also a species of special concern in Iowa due to declining numbers.
Skippers If you can’t tell if an insect is a butterfly or a moth, you may be looking at a skipper. Skippers are in the family Hesperiidae, and have chunky bodies with hooked, hockey-stick-shaped antennae. They appear carefree as they skip through the air. From the side, their wings give them a triangular, shark-fin shape. Out of the two butterfly species in Iowa considered endangered, one is a skipper, called the Dakota skipper. It requires high-quality prairie remnants, a habitat extremely hard to find in Iowa.
While many people love butterflies, these insects don’t always receive the respect they deserve being diverse and important wildlife. They are more than nature’s gems-they are important pollinators that have fun behaviors to appreciate! Moths are often forgotten, despite the fact that they can be bigger and more colorful than many butterfly species, and have the coolest adaptations, such as flashes of color and mouth-less adults! The world of moths and butterflies is not just a pretty one; it’s a wild one!
The Des Moines Waterworks was forced to use their nitrate removal system for the first time in five years. Our spring snapshot found high nitrate concentrations in streams across Story County. On my way to speak at the CCE Environmental Expo in Mitchell County, I dipped a test strip in the Cedar River near Osage and measured 16 mg/L. Looking at the Iowa Water Quality Information System there’s orange (nitrate greater than 10 mg/L) across much of the state and spots of dark red (nitrate greater than 20 mg/L) in Story, Hamilton, and Hardin counties. What’s going on?
Well, differences in land use, soils, topography, and farming practices make for strong regional differences in water quality. For some streams like the North Raccoon River, this is a return to normal. For some streams, like the Cedar River, current conditions are unusual. To illustrate this, I’ve invented my own graph, which compares highest nitrate concentrations observed this spring (the blue dot) to the entire 10-20 year record (a black band showing the range, and a black square showing the median). The data comes from Iowa DNR’s Ambient Stream Monitoring Network; I will update these graphs once June data is available. A sampling of sites is shown at right, but the entire graph can be downloaded as a PDF here.
Northwest Iowa is still suffering from drought, and that means the Floyd River near Sioux City (which usually has some of the highest nitrate concentrations in the state) is barely flowing and has very low nitrate concentrations. As we saw last year, nutrient concentrations tend to be low during dry conditions except where there is a strong influence from point sources of pollution. Most of the rest of the state is back to normal, and nitrate that accumulated in the soil during two dry years is now getting flushed out. These maps are taken from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I’ve drawn in the approximate location of the watersheds for the monitoring sites in my example.
“Weather whiplash in agricultural regions drives deterioration of water quality.” That’s the title and conclusion of a paper that studied previous episodes when a wet spring followed a dry summer and fall. The 2012 drought was much more severe than 2021, impacting yields so that less nitrogen was taken up by the crop and removed in the grain, and maybe that’s why nitrate in 2013 and 2014 was so much higher than it is now. I’ve compared spring highs for several sites and years, normalizing by the long-term average. It’s not clear to me whether weather whiplash increases the overall mass (load) of nitrogen that gets washed away, or just alters the timing (moving in one year what would have been parceled out over two), but high concentrations are a concern for communities like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids that get their drinking water from a river or river-influenced wells.
I’m procrastinating on the work I’m supposed to be doing because “Hey look! Data!” and I have to satisfy my curiosity. If you’d like to see us do more water quality analysis beyond Story County, let us know, and support us with a charitable donation so it can become work I’m supposed to be doing!
Sad to say, but this is the last blog I will write as the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway Coordinator. It has been a fun-filled six years in this position. At times it doesn’t seem like that much time could have passed. But it has. As I reflect, we accomplished quite a bit. Going back through quarterly and annual reports, I learned I gave over 65 presentations to cities, counties, and service groups. Some of these were in person and some virtual. I also manned booths at local celebrations and at the Iowa State Fair. At several community 125th or 150th year celebrations, we had an entry in the parade. These experiences allowed me to meet the people who live along the Byway and those interested in the Lincoln Highway. All are great people with a passion for their communities and I wish them well.
As with most non-profit programs, it takes a village to run a successful program. Thanks to the Prairie Rivers of Iowa (PRI) board members. They helped with events, manned booths, and supported the Byway efforts 100%. To Penny Brown-Huber, PRI Executive Director, I owe her everything. She took a chance on an older person who went back to grad school in her 50’s and gave me the job I know I was destined for. Still remember looking at the job posting and saying to myself, “I can do that. I can do that,” as I scrolled through the duties. Then I read through them again to see if there was anything I didn’t want to do. NOPE! I interviewed and was hired.
To the staff: I appreciate Dan Haug who helps the program by creating maps; Carman Rosburg who does the accounting work, keeps me in office supplies, and volunteers to help with events; and I appreciate those countless interns and now Joshua Benda, our Graphic Designer, as they have and continue to do the design work on interpretive panels and brochures- I owe you all a ton of gratitude. It is your unwavering dedication to your job and your professionalism that kept me motivated.
Mahanay Bell Tower in Jefferson by Mike Whye
The Iowa Byways program has seen some changes. Currently we are working with Travel Iowa with the Iowa Byways Passport Program. This program has allowed all 14 Iowa Byways to be more visible to the public and the program has really taken off. With summer approaching soon and vaccines available, I hope you all will get out and travel around Iowa. We have a beautiful and interesting state with much to see and do. I have new favorites from my travels along the Byway. Some of them are the Tremont and Taylor’s Maid-Rite in Marshalltown, the view from the Elijah Buell Terrace by the Sawmill Museum in the Lyon’s District of Clinton, and the view from Mahanay Bell Tower in Jefferson is breathtaking. You can see for miles and miles from the observation deck. And who can leave out Harrison County Historical Village and Welcome Center near Missouri Valley. Kathy Dirks and staff are so welcoming and they have tons of Lincoln Highway info – and even a movie! I could go on and on.
Old Car at Youngville by Mike Kelly
I appreciate Henry Ostermann who knew the Lincoln Highway better than anyone from 1913-1920. He lost his life in an accident on his beloved highway. And to all those auto pioneers who helped develop roads and cars – if they could see us now with our climate control, GPS, parallel parking aides, satellite radio, video monitors, back-up cameras and large SUVs. That’s all stuff they probably didn’t even imagine could be possible.
I appreciate the folks in the Lincoln Highway Association that brought attention back to the road in 1992 when they re-formed the national association. To Bob, Joyce, Dean, Jeannie, Bob O., Cathy, Lyell, Rex, Mary Helen, Joe, Kathy, Barbara, Mike, Sandii, and Van – your expertise and knowledge of the Lincoln Highway was invaluable. And a special shout-out to Russell Rein, the current LHA Field Secretary, who lives in Michigan. He has answered every question I’ve asked him in a super timely manner. I am amazed at his knowledge.
As I prepare for my last day on April 16th, I am extremely proud that we have a both a Corridor Management Plan and an Interpretive Master Plan to follow that outlines the direction for the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway. And I am over the moon that we can add “ – A National Scenic Byway” to our title. It is time to hand the baton off and let a new person take the lead.
I thank all of you for reading this and for your interest and support of the Lincoln Highway and the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway- A National Scenic Byway. I had to say it one more time!
