Plants + Pollinators
Violets & The Great Spangled Fritillary Butterfly
Bird’s Foot Violet
Violets are the host plant of Fritillary Butterflies. Wait…violets, won’t they take over my yard? The Common Violet is a bit vigorous for some, but there are many different kinds of violets that you can use instead. Two of my favorites are the Prairie Violet and the Bird’s Foot Violet, both are a bit more well-behaved than the Common Violet. However, if you have the space to keep those Common Violets, they are an easy and beautiful ground cover in some hard-to-plant areas.
Great Spangled Fritillary Caterpillar
I found this caterpillar in the leaf litter in my garden bed. Another good reason to leave the leaf litter around trees and in garden beds.
Great Spangled Fritillary on Butterfly Weed (Photo Credit: John Blair)
Soft Landings: Where the pollinators you are supporting can finish their life cycles!
Soft Landings: Where the pollinators you are supporting can finish their life cycles! Let’s nurture those babies into adulthood.
Let’s nurture those little babies into adulthood.
Jacob’s Ladder
Want to know of a beautiful and easy way to help the growth and development of your local pollinators? It’s called a soft landing. Soft landings are diverse native plantings under keystone trees (or any other regionally appropriate native tree). These plantings provide critical shelter and habitat for one or more life cycle stages of a number of useful insects. In addition to plants, soft landings also include leaf litter, duff, and plant debris.*
Expanding my soft landing to make it more effective.
Many of the moths and butterflies that feed on native trees must complete their life cycles in the duff and leaf litter near or beneath the tree, or below ground. Creating soft landings under the dripline of trees invites all kinds of other beneficial insects to complete their life cycles in your yard. A number of beneficial insects such as fireflies, bumble bees, beetles, and lacewings need soft landings to survive. Planting intentional soft landings under keystone trees builds healthy soil, provides food for songbirds and pollinators, sequesters more carbon than turf grass, and reduces time spent mowing.*
For more information, plant lists, and examples of soft landings please visit pollinatorsnativeplants.com/softlandings.html
Native Plants….Just Start with One
Native Plants….Just Plant One
Want to support pollinators, but it feels overwhelming and you don’t know where to start, that’s okay….just plant one. Everything in your beautiful garden is non-native, that’s okay….just plant one. Have never planted a single plant ever, that’s okay….just plant one. Your neighbors will think you are planting weeds, that’s okay….just plant one well-behaved one. Don’t have a garden, that’s okay….just plant one, in a pot. It all starts with one, one native plant to help support pollinators, one native plant to host your favorite butterfly, one native plant to host that specialist bee. Just one plant is the start of your native plant journey, whether it is in a prairie or a pot…just plant one.
But which one is the one?
Here are a few very easy, well-behaved native plants perfect for being the one.