FREE POLLINATOR FRIENDLY PLANTING GUIDES

[Mona Miller]

http://www.pollinator.org/guides.htm
"FREE POLLINATOR FRIENDLY PLANTING GUIDES
Invite pollinators to your neighborhood by planting a pollinator friendly habitat in your garden, farm, school, park or just about anywhere!

These guides were funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the C.S. Fund, the Plant Conservation Alliance, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management with oversight by the Pollinator Partnership, in support of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign."

[Paul Cherubini]

The guides instruct the public to visit a native plant nursery. So I guess that means the authors of the guides are against planting non-native flowering plants. Native plant nurseries are small businesses that don't carry a huge volume of plants. So mathematically, I can't see how they could significantly increase the abundance of flowering plants on a landscape scale.

Practical example: I recently visited the Las Pilitas Nursery in Santa Margarita, Calif - one of the largest and best known native plant nurseries. But the entire inventory of that nursery was located on about 3 acres of land. So even if a rich person came along and decided to buy their entire inventory and plant it somewhere, what good could 3 acres of native plants do to increase the abundance of pollinators on a regional scale?

[applestar]

Haha, that's funny!

I collected a "reach out of the car window and grab a handful" of a native flower seeds last fall. An Eupatorium spp. (I can't remember off hand the exact species). The have happily sprung up in various parts of my garden this spring. They are late bloomers and provide great nectar source this late in the season when even the goldenrods are starting to turn brown -- and emit honey sweet scent!

This morning, one of the monarchs looked listless and on close exam had an empty abdomen so I got the freshest bouquet of them in a hurry. The Monarch stayed on those flowers for nearly 1/2 hour.