Don’t Pull Those Weeds and Help the Bees!

Don’t Pull Those Weeds and Help the Bees!

by | Apr 18, 2025

You might think it is time to start cleaning up your yard and gardens. The sun has finally come out, and everything is starting to warm up. As little flowers start popping up all over your yard, you might be tempted to pull them, but don’t, or at least hold off for a little longer! 

Did you know that there are over 40 million acres of turfgrass in the U.S., and roughly 2/3rds of that is home lawns. This contributes to the habitat loss that pollinators are facing. The least we can do is let a couple of weeds grow for a while.

Dandelions, Violets, Creeping Charlie, and Henbit are only a handful of blooming weeds that help provide critical nectar resources for pollinators! Leaving the weeds also helps reduce soil erosion and soil compaction. Once other plants and trees start flowering, and it is consistently 50°F or above, you can start getting your yards and gardens ready. This is when insects are out of diapause, something we would think of as hibernation, and there are plenty of nectar resources available.

If you don’t want to leave the weeds, but still want to help the bees, here is one alternative! You can plant native early spring blooming species! This actually helps pollinators more than just leaving the weeds because they provide more nutrients and nectar resources. Our native pollinators coevolved with these native Spring Ephemerals, meaning that they actually seek them out!

Below is a list of great species you could plant in your gardens or even in pots!

Pasque Flower  Anemone patens

Sun: Full

Soil: Dry, native to Loess Hills area

Height: 6 inches

Bloom time: April, May

Plant in rock or dry prairie gardens, goes well with Prairie Smoke, Blue-eyed Grass, and June Grass

Shooting Star Dodecatheon meadia

Sun: Part Shade

Soil: Dry to Medium

Height: Up to 20 inches

Bloom Time: April, June

Grows in prairies and woodland edges, naturally found in high quality sites.

Grows well with Golden Alexanders, Wild Geranium

Prairie Smoke Geum Triflorum

Sun: Full

Soil: Dry to Medium

Height: 1 foot

Bloom Time: May, June

Plant in rock or dry gardens, goes well with Pussy Toes, Nodding Wild Onion, and Golden Alexander

Dutchman’s Breeches Dicentra cucullaria

Sun: Part Shade to Full Shade

Soil: Moist, well drained

Height: 4 – 12 inches

Bloom Time: April, May

Plant in rich soil that gets a lot of shade as this plant is a woodland species.

Virginia Bluebells Martensia virginica

Sun: Part Shade to Full Shade

Soil: Moist to Wet

Height: 1 – 2.5 feet

Bloom Time: April, June

They love sun in early Spring but need a shaded area as Summer begins.  These plants transplant quite well, but not tolerant of sunny dry locations.

All in all, anything you can do to reduce pesticide use, create habitat and nectar resources, or increase nesting sites is a huge help in pollinator conservation. You don’t have to do a lot to have an impact on these small but mighty creatures.

I challenge you to take a walk around your yard, garden, or some green space. I want you to take it slow so you can notice all of the life that depends on the Earth. Look at all of the insects moving around, filling their niches. See all of the birds feeding on these insects and helping control populations. Notice the squirrels spreading the seeds of trees. Observe how the breeze moves the plants or how the plants move toward the sunlight. 

 

It is up to YOU to help keep our environment healthy and thriving.

Create a Native Plant Sensory Garden!

Create a Native Plant Sensory Garden!

by | Feb 24, 2025

Spring is around the corner and that means it’s time to plan our gardens! A fun garden to add to your yard is a sensory garden. A sensory garden involves all of your senses (taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight) making it a great learning opportunity for young children,  adults with mental disabilities, or really anyone! It stimulates your mind and allows you to connect with nature. These are the plants I would use if I wanted to create an Iowa native sensory garden!

Rattlesnake master

Rattlesnake Master Eryngium yuccifolium

Sense: Touch

This fun-looking plant would be perfect to stimulate your sense of touch, especially as fall approaches and it becomes more prickly. They are the larval host plant for Eryngium Stem Borer Moth and the Flower Feeding Moths. This wildflower is mostly pollinated by nectar eating wasps.

Plant Needs:

  • Full sun
  • Moist to medium soil
Monarch and Bumblebee on Swamp Milkweed

Swamp Milkweed Asclepias incarnata

Sense: Smell

This plant is the host plant for the Monarch Butterfly and is a brilliant purple when in bloom. The blooms smell like bubblegum! 

Plant Needs:

  • Full to part shade
  • Moist soil
Narrow-leaved purple coneflower

Pale Purple Coneflower Echinacea pallida

Sense: Touch, Sight, Taste

Pale Purple Coneflower is native to most of Iowa whereas Purple coneflower is more of a garden variety and not native to Story County. The brilliant purple petals are used for herbal teas. The seed head is spikey so use caution when touching.

Plant Needs:

  • Full to part sun
  • Medium to dry soil

Bead Grass Paspalum setaceum michx

Sense: Touch

Bead grass is super fun to seed harvest! the little seeds are like seed beads and you can just use your hand to strip the seeds off.

Plant Needs:

  • Full sun
  • Warm season grass
  • Dry soil

Gray-headed Coneflower Ratibida pinnata

 Sense: Smell, Sight

These yellow flowers are the larval hosts of the Wavey Lined Emerald Moth. Long Horned Bees love Gray headed Coneflower and can be seen covered in pollen on top of them.

Plant Needs:

  • Full sun
  • Dry soil
Bee balm

Bee Balm Monarda Fistulosa

Sense: Taste

They are a pollinator favorite and one of the best forage plants for bumble bees. they are the larval host plant of Hermit Sphinx Moths and Snout Moths. They are in the mint family and have a square stem. The petals also taste minty and can be made into a tea.

Plant Needs:

  • Full to part sun
  • Prefers dry soils
Bee balm

Wild White Indigo Baptisia alba

Sense:  Sound

They are the larval host plant of the Slouded Sulpher butterfly, Genista Broom Moth, and Black-Spotted Prominent Moth. Bumble bees are the primary pollinators of wild white indigo.

Plant Needs:

  • Full to part sun
  • Prefers dry soils

Now get out there and grow some native plants! Don’t forget to tag Prairie Rivers in your native gardens on Facebook.

Resolutions to Help Pollinators

Resolutions to Help Pollinators

by | Jan 6, 2025

A new year means new resolutions! My personal resolutions are to build garden boxes out of reclaimed bricks and seed native plants in my backyard. There are many other things you can do to support pollinators this year.

Become a Wildlife Gardener

Choosing a patch (big or small) of turf grass to transform into a beautiful native garden is a great way to help native wildlife and pollinators. To help pollinators you should plant species that bloom in the Spring, Summer, and Fall to ensure there are nectar resources year-round.

Some of my favorite native plants are Purple Prairie Clover, Golden Alexander, and Bee Balm!

Create Nesting Sites

You can create natural nesting sites by leaving logs on the ground to break down or leaving your cut plant stems in the fall. Brush piles can also provide a great nesting area. Bee hotels can also create needed nesting sites for our pollinators although they require careful maintenance to keep disease and mite numbers low.  

Snowberry Clearwing Moth

70% of our native bees are ground-nesting. Help them out by creating access to patches of bare soil and avoiding tilling while they nest. Another way to help ground-nesting bees is to consider mulching with compost instead of wood bark mulch – it has many of the same benefits such as weed suppression, and water retention, yet allows for nesting and improves your soil! 

Some pollinators only lay their eggs on specific host plants. For example, the Monarch butterfly’s host plant is Milkweed.

Another is the Regal Fritillary with their host plant, Violets.

Planting specific host plants for pollinators is another great way to create habitat! 

Reducing Pesticide Use

Reducing pesticide use has a HUGE impact on local wildlife health! Whether it is insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides, or fungicides, they hurt and can kill beneficial insects like pollinators. They are designed to kill, and they do that well. Pesticides can also become dangerous runoff when it rains and wash away into rivers or waterways. 

According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, American homeowners use up to ten times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops. You will need less pesticide if you create better soil health by composting, aerate the soil so insects have an easier time incorporating organic matter, and use Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

There are plenty of alternatives to using pesticides in your garden. 

Here are some options:

  • Use your hands the old-fashioned way! I love getting my hands dirty when I garden. It makes me feel connected to nature.
  • Add barriers like fencing or mesh to keep pests off of your plants.

Be mindful by only using pesticides when absolutely necessary. These are times like battling invasive species or infestations. Use targeted chemicals for specific issues and avoid broad-spectrum or systemic pesticides that harm everything they come in contact with.

Create a Water Source

Pollinators need water too! Bees use water to help regulate the temperature of their hive and feed their young. Bees can’t swim so it is important that any water source you create is shallow and has some sort of hard surface scattered in it. You can make your own pollinator watering station easily.

You can use a bird bath if only add a little water and add rocks.

You can also use a hummingbird feeder filled with regular tap or rain water! No need to add anything. The bees will gather on the fake flowers and drink to their heart’s content. Hummingbirds will also still visit for a quick drink.

If you have rocks or glass marbles you can fill any container with them and a little water. This gives pollinators plenty of places to stand and drink from.

If you want a self-filling watering hole, you can even use a gravity-fed pet feeder. Just add rocks to the bottom bowl to prevent drowning. 

Rebugging our Community

Rebugging our Community

by | Nov 22, 2024

Insect populations have dropped drastically over the last few decades. Bugs are the building blocks of our environment and provide many benefits such as beautiful flowers, food sources, soil aeration, and more. We can help these little creatures flourish by rebugging our community. I could spout science facts all day long about how insect populations have dwindled, you have likely already noticed.

When I was younger, we would visit my grandparents who lived 2 hours away. We would have to stop at least once to clean our windshield. Now I can drive over 6 hours to visit my parents and never have to clean my windshield. Or maybe, you have noticed that there aren’t as many Monarch butterflies as you used to see. We used to take walks and have a hard time not stepping on grasshoppers and we used to see fireflies every night. Now there seems to be a fraction of insects around as there used to be. According to Hallmann et al, insect biomass has declined by 74% – 83%. Many insects are beneficial and are not considered pests. They decompose plants, animals, and fecal matter. They aerate our soil, provide a food source for other animals, and pollinate our plants.

Why are they declining?

This is a tricky question as their decline is not caused by just one thing. They are dying a death by a thousand cuts. Habitat fragmentation and degradation, pollution, pesticide use (especially Neonictonoids), loss of native plants, light pollution, climate change, and many other reasons. Some species of insects need specific food sources or plants to lay their eggs on. Iowa has lost over 99% of its native landscapes, meaning it has become increasingly difficult for insects to find their host plants and habitats.

Insect Decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a Thousand cuts by Wagner et al assesses the metadata surrounding insect decline.

What can we do to help? 

While this decline is very alarming, we can all help “rebug” our world.

If you have a minute:

  • Don’t kill the bugs that have found their way into your home; instead, relocate them outside. If you don’t want to touch them, you can safely handle them with a piece of paper and a cup.
  • Reduce pesticide use, or better yet, stop using it altogether – pesticides harm all insects, not just the small percentage that are considered pests
    • Or use alternative methods such as putting food in containers so it is not available to insects
    • Or put soapy water, cinnamon, lemon juice, or mint around the holes that they seem to be coming in at
    • If you MUST kill them, use boiling water or cornstarch instead of chemicals
    • Be untidy in your garden! Insects use weeds, old plant stems, wood, and leaves
    • Reduce outdoor lighting – you can do this by incorporating motion sensors. Insects and a variety of other animals use the stars as navigation. Constant outdoor lighting disrupts and confuses their natural systems. 
    • Keep lawn grass longer – this provides shelter and a food source

If you have more time:

  • Plant native gardens – this provides food sources and habitat, it also helps to connect habitats as insects can only travel so far before needing a break and a snack
  • You can do this in containers, your yard, window boxes, or anywhere there is a little bit of space!
    • Plant host plants – such as milkweed for monarch butterflies
    • Grow your own produce – the flowers are great sources of nutrients for insects
    • Compost – an open compost pile provides warmth, habitat, and food for invertebrates
      • You can also use compost systems to build up soil health!

If you have a lot of time:

  • Advocate for policies that promote re-wilding the state. This helps protect and create more natural areas. Write to your local, state, and federal governments to explain the importance of policies protecting insects and wildlife.
  • Talk to your boss and landlords about creating native gardens
  • Join community groups that support insects! 

“The loss of even a small percent of insects might also be disproportionately consequential. They sit at the base of the food web; if they go down, so will many birds, bats, spiders, and other predators.”

– Ed Young 

Iowa’s Native Milkweed Species

Iowa’s Native Milkweed Species

by | Sep 5, 2024

Milkweed is important! Not only do they provide beautiful flowers, but they are the host plant of Monarch Butterflies. Monarch caterpillars feed on the milky sap and leaves as they grow. Iowa has 18 native species of Milkweed, but I am going to cover the 4 most common.  They are perennial plants and can grow in a wide variety of habitats. Milkweed make up the Asclepiadaceae family. This scientific name comes from the Greek God of healing and medicine; Asclepius. 

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is probably what you think of when you hear the name milkweed. They have beautiful large blooms of pink flowers, typically from June until August. When under the right conditions, they can grow up to 6 feet tall! You can find common milkweed almost anywhere including fields, prairies, ditches, and disturbed areas.

Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) have vibrant orange flowers. These beautiful plants only grow up to 3 feet tall and stay tidy. They are a perfect option for your gardens! They bloom from June until August and their leaves are rough and narrow. They establish in dry open habitats like old fields and prairies. Unlike the rest of the milkweed on this list, butterfly milkweed does not have milky white sap. 

Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is one of the Monarch Butterfly’s favorite types of milkweed. You might also hear it referred to as rose milkweed. They have narrow leaves and bright pink flowers. Swamp milkweed blooms from July to August. They also smell just like bubblegum, so if you see one in the wild make sure to give it a sniff. Just make sure you don’t accidentally startle any stinging insects! These plants like to grow in wet soils on the edges of prairie potholes and marshes. They can grow to over 5 feet tall.

Whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) spreads via seeds and rhizomes. Their leaves are thin and narrow and can look like needles. A monarch caterpillar can eat several plants. They can grow up to 3 feet tall, but most of the time they are much shorter. They bloom from July to September and have little white flowers. Whorled milkweed are one of the last blooming milkweed, which makes it a particularly important source of food for monarchs.

Milkweed have seed pods. You may have seen these pods cracked open in the fall or individual seeds floating gracefully in the air. If you plan on harvesting your own and planting them, the time to plant is now! Planting in the fall is exactly what milkweed needs to germinate. They require a cold period of weather followed by a warm period of weather; this is called cold stratification.

So now that you know all about milkweed, it is time to go grow some! Plant them everywhere! Plant them in your front yard, in your back yard, in all of your gardens, in your parent’s gardens. I love milkweed and so will you.