Native plant gardeners with keen observation skills have surely noticed the increase in flower-visiting insects in their gardens. Fascinating visitation patterns emerge from one growing season to the next such as the same type of bee consistently foraging on a particular native plant. About 15 years ago, while installing and tending native landscapes, I started […]
December 26, 2023leslieBiodiversity, Native Plants, Pollinators “Native flowers are absolutely the best food source for native pollinators, and the pollinators know it.Read More Throughout the millennia, the astounding beauty of the butterfly has inspired the imagination, the arts, literature, and poetry. Attracting these magnificent creatures into our own yards requires three basic ingredients: larval host […]
October 30, 2023leslieBees, Biodiversity, Gardening, Pollinators Let’s suppose you’re shopping for hot sauce. You probably have a favorite brand. You may be very firm about it. Let’s say you’d definitely buy Tabasco, but you’d rarely buy any other brand.Read More January 16, 2023leslieBees, Insects Our gentle dog Ruby was diagnosed with malignant melanoma last year. […]
August 4, 2021leslieGardening, Insects, Native Plants, Soil The Ephemeral Spring WildflowersAfter a long winter, spring wildflower ephemerals herald a new growing season. The first blooms magically transform the woodland landscape.Read More May 17, 2021leslieCommunity, Lawns, Native Plants “What if each American landowner made it a goal to convert half of his or her lawn to […]
Nature photographer Travis Bonovsky has a knack for spotting birds “doing their thing,” just about any time he walks out his front door. Although common in many parts of the country, the northern cardinal’s red plume never fails to thrill—especially in the dead of winter. Bonovsky explains why he took this particular picture: “Many birds […]
The Butterfly Effect is published four times per year by Neighborhood Greening. In it, we spotlight our successes, examine small but impactful changes we can make to become better stewards of our local environment, tell our “green” stories, and show how environmental stewardship directly enriches our community, families, and lives. Sign up to be notified […]
November 18, 2024 Much of the attention given to insect pollinators focuses on bees and butterflies with a passing interest given to moths and perhaps wasps. Flies and beetles are sometimes depicted when a photo to promote bee conservation is mistakenly a syrphid, bee fly or, on the rare occasion, a flower longhorn beetle. The […]
Native plant gardeners with keen observation skills have surely noticed the increase in flower-visiting insects in their gardens. Fascinating visitation patterns emerge from one growing season to the next such as the same type of bee consistently foraging on a particular native plant. About 15 years ago, while installing and tending native landscapes, I started […]
The coyote has long been thought of as an animal of the American West. This was true during the pre-Columbian era when the coyote primarily roamed the Southwest and Great Plains of the United States. Today, however, its ever-expanding range stretches across all of the lower-48 states (and Alaska) and much of Canada, as well […]
September 26, 2022leslieBees, Biodiversity, Birds, Butterflies, Gardening, Insects, Lawns, Native Plants, Pollinators, Soil How you can help wild animals come in for a soft landing.Read More August 4, 2021leslieGardening, Insects, Native Plants, Soil The Ephemeral Spring WildflowersAfter a long winter, spring wildflower ephemerals herald a new growing season. The first blooms magically transform the woodland […]
It’s hard for many gardeners to resist “cleaning up” their gardens in the fall or spring. But many moths and butterflies overwinter as caterpillars, pupae, and even adults in the soil surface, leaf litter, dead plants, twigs, and other hiding places in the garden. Other insects such as native bees, beetles, and more, need “messy” […]
Willows are one of the last of our shrubs and trees to lose their leaves in autumn. They turn shades of yellow—anywhere from greenish-yellow to whitish-yellow. As earlier fall colors start to paint our landscapes, the willows offer a decidedly green contrast in a diversity of shades depending on the species. They can be gray-green […]
April 26, 2019leslieGardening, Native Plants, Pollinators Next time you visit your favorite garden center, you may want to contemplate some of these purchases:Read More A few summers ago, the Kraus family noticed a steady increase in monarch butterflies visiting their backyard native wildflower garden. One day after an overnight rainfall, Paula Kraus was stunned to […]
I live in a lovely but turf-dominant Twin Cities suburb in Minnesota. After earning my certification as a Minnesota Master Naturalist and studying the work of noted ecologist Douglas Tallamy, I began to understand the critical importance of transitioning my corner of the world to a more natural habitat, primarily for the sake of native […]