2022 Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference by Nancy Shepard

 

This year’s Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants conference is being held on Saturday, February 26^th and runs 9:30 AM to 4 PM. I attended the conference last year and found it to have very valuable information and I plan on attending again. The Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference promotes the inclusion of native plants in our landscaping to benefit pollinators and songbirds, save water, and restore the beauty and health of nature in the places we live, work and play.  

How about a 2020 Victory Garden for Pollinators? by Vicky Spelman

Daniyal Ghanavati - Pexels

We’ve all read many articles about the decline of our pollinators.  With the same energy used in the original Victory Gardens, we can meet another threat to our food supply and help our pollinators. 

Spring Bulbs for Pollinators by Vicky Spelman

Hiliary Halliwell - Pexels

All those bulbs you planted last Fall should be starting to pop up.  In March and April, we will still have some colder weather but the anticipation of Spring is here. As temperatures warm up pollinators will emerge from hibernation needing food sources.  Some of the earliest flowers to bloom are bulbs helping to provide the necessary nectar for hungry bees and pollinators.

Host Plants for Butterflies by Joyce D'Agostino

Painted Lady

Swallowtail

We are all aware of the need to support pollinators in our gardens and this includes butterflies. Butterflies are part of the ecosystem of beneficial insects that helps promote a healthy and balanced environment. Providing the necessary food, shelter and water for these insects helps attract more into your yard.

Often butterfly gardens focus on growing the plants that provide nectar for butterflies. While these plants are important food sources, it is essential that host plants are also included. A host plant is one that will allow the mature adult to lay eggs which emerge into caterpillars. These caterpillars use the host plants for food and shelter as they develop. 

Many host plants are native plants but some are readily found in garden centers as transplants or easy to grow from seed. For example, black swallowtail butterflies will use common kitchen herbs such as parsley, dill and fennel as hosts for their caterpillars. 

Providing both the host and nectar plants that are available in succession over the season will help bring more butterflies (and other pollinators) into your yard and garden.  Recording which butterflies visit your garden will also help you know the host and nectar plants that each need. 

The fact sheet and link below provide an excellent chart and detailed information to help you know what to plant to attract butterflies and support them all summer. 

https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/insects/attracting-butterflies-to-the-garden-5-504-2/

http://coloradofrontrangebutterflies.com/butterfly-families

https://xerces.org/pollinators-mountain-region/

Pollinator of the Week: Squash Bees

Squash bee, photo courtesy Holly Prendeville, University of Nebraska

This article is reprinted  from “Squash Bees” by Jim Cane, USDA ARS, Bee Biology and Systematics Lab, Logan, Utah. 

Got squash? If so, you have the chance to see the most important floral specialists in agriculture, native solitary bees of two genera, Peponapis and Xenoglossa, the so-called “squash bees”. Look at your squash’s flowers during the first few hours after sunrise. Male squash bees will be darting between flowers, searching for mates. By noon, they will be fast asleep in the withered flowers.

Pollinator of the Week: Flower Flies

Tachinid fly, photo courtesy of Beatriz Moisset

The two-winged insects (flies, gnats, mosquitos) is a very large and varied group. Many of them specifically visit flowers, such as the Syrphid flies or flower flies. They are not as hairy as bees nor as efficient at carrying pollen, but some are still good pollinators. The USDA Forest Service provides the following information about Fly Pollination.

Pollinator of the Week: Leaf Cutting Bees

A female leafcutter bee collecting pollen. Image courtesy of Jim McCulloch.

This article is excerpted from Leaf Cutting Bees (Megachile spp.) by Beatriz Moisset, USDA Forest Service.

There are about 242 species of Megachile bees or leaf cutting bees in North America. They belong to a larger group that includes also other leaf cutting as well as mason bees; these are all very good pollinators with very interesting habits.

Megachile bees are black and furry. They vary in size, on average about the same size as a honeybee. Most bees carry pollen in baskets on their legs. However, Megachile is different; the underside of the female’s abdomen is particularly furry and is used for this purpose. If you see a black bee, about the size of a honeybee, with a yellow belly, you probably saw a Megachile.

Pollinator of the Week: Halictid Bees

Sweat bee on wild rose,  photo courtesy LuRay Parker, Wyoming Wildlife

In honor of the upcoming National Pollinator Week (June 19-25), we are highlighting a different pollinator every week. This week's pollinator is the Halictid bee, commonly known as sweat bees.  Thanks to Vince Tepidino, USDA ARS, Bee Biology and Systematics Lab in Logan Utah for the following information.

Pollinators have distinct foraging characteristics – some are specialists that collect pollen from flowers of just a few kinds of plants. Others, like the Halictidae (sweat bees), seem to be "anti-specialists". To paraphrase the early 20th century humorist Will Rogers, they have never met a flower they did not like, and they rarely find one whose pollen or nectar is unyielding. Such generalists visit a wide variety of flowers and often seem to do so indiscriminately. Variety seems to be the spice of their foraging lives. 

Pollinator of the Week: Rufous Hummingbird

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Rufous Hummingbird, photo courtesy Pollinator Partnership

This article is excerpted from The Rufous Hummingbird: Small But Feisty Long-distance Migrant by Stephen Buchmann, Pollinator Partnership. 

 Many western and southwestern gardeners know the Rufous hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) as a delightful often-unexpected visitor to colorful garden wildflowers or hummingbird feeders. These amazing small but feisty birds (only 3” long) weigh merely three or four grams; for comparison, a United States penny weighs about 2.5 grams. These birds are amazing aerialists, darting in and out, and can be relentless attackers of other birds and insects at feeders and flowers. They have long slender nearly straight bills. Their wings are relatively short and do not reach the end of the tail when the birds are perched on a feeder or nearby branches. They are also one of the few North American hummingbirds to migrate long distances. Rufous hummingbirds are a western species, rarely straying into the eastern United States.

Pollinator of the Week: The Colorado State Insect!

Colorado Hairstreak Butterfly, photo courtesy statesymbolsusa.org

Did you know that Colorado has a state insect? The Colorado Hairstreak butterfly (Hypaurotis crysalus) was designated the official state insect  in 1996 due to the steady lobbying of 4th graders from Wheeling Elementary in Aurora, Colorado (led by teacher Melinda Terry).

The Colorado Hairstreak is a small to medium sized butterfly with a wingspan of about 1.25-1.5 inches. The upperside of the wings is purple, with a darker border; coloration is brighter in the males. Small orange spots mark the lower outside edge of each wing. The underside of the wings is light blue with faint dark bands and orange spots at the base of the hind wing. Typical of other hairstreak butterflies, a delicate “tail” protrudes from the hind wings.

Pollinator of the Week: Hawk (Sphinx) Moth

A giant hawk moth (Eumorpha typhon) adult. Image by Alfred University artist Joseph Scheer.

This information is excerpted from an article by Steve Buchman, The Bee Works. You can read the entire article here.

Moths live in a wide variety of habitats around the world. They usually go unnoticed, except when flying erratically around your porch light, a streetlight, or other light source in the darkness of night. Most moths work the night shift, unlike their “respectable cousins” the butterflies. Moths represent a biological storehouse of interesting, dramatic, and unusual behaviors, some with roles as pollinators, others as food sources.

Pollinator Week: Providing Water for Pollinators

Swallowtail drinking from a mud puddle, photo courtesy offset.com

Creating a pollinator-friendly garden goes beyond providing pollinator-friendly plants. Pollinators need sources of water for many purposes, including drinking and reproduction.  Butterflies, for example, will gather and sip at shallow pools, mud puddles or even birdbaths.  

Save Our Pollinators: What You Can Do by Patti O'Neal

Photo by Donna Duffy

Do you enjoy any of these foods?  Avocados, Blueberries, Apples Cherries, Chocolate, Coffee, Peaches, Vanilla?  What if you did not have them any longer?  What would your world look like then? 

Did you know that insect pollinators – primarily social and solitary bees – are responsible for pollinating 35% of the world’s crop production, increasing outputs of 87 of the leading food crops worldwide as well as many plant-derived medicines.  At least one third of the world’s agricultural crops depends upon pollination provided by insects and other invertebrates.  

National Pollinator Week 2018: Gardening for Pollinators

Pollinators on Opuntia bloom, photo by Donna Duffy

June 18-24, 2018 has been designated National Pollinator Week. Now is the time to add pollinator-friendly plants to your landscape. Following are landscaping tips from the Colorado Native Plant Society and the USDA Forest Service to help you get started.

Be a Habitat Hero!

Does your garden supply habitat for songbirds and pollinators? If so, you can apply for Habitat Hero designation. A Habitat Hero garden meets these five objectives:

• Creates diverse layers, plus shelter and nesting opportunities for wildlife
• Is waterwise, energy-efficient, and uses few or no pesticides
• Provides natural food in different seasons, based at least partly on native plants
• Offers water for drinking and bathing
• Controls invasive species

Breakfast Without Bees by Patti O'Neal

On Earth Day, Commit to Protect Pollinators by Donna Duffy

Wool Carder Bee, photo courtesy Whitney Crenshaw

Imagine living in a world without flowers, fruit, coffee or even chocolate for that matter. Thanks to the work of pollinators, much of the food we eat and flowers and plants we enjoy are possible. And it’s not just bees that are doing all the work. Butterflies, birds, beetles, bats, wasps and even flies are important in the pollination process. Worldwide, there is an alarming decline in pollinator populations. Excessive use of pesticides and an ever-expanding conversion of landscapes to human use are the biggest culprits.

The Importance of Insect Pollinators by Audrey Stokes

Bumblebee

First things, first: What are pollinators?

Many insects, birds, and animals help move pollen between flowers and act as “pollinators”. Butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, and flies are examples of insect pollinators. When a pollinator visits a flower it is looking for food but while feeding, these insects inadvertently transfer pollen grains between flowers and help the plants produce fruit and seeds.

Next: Why is pollination important to plants?

Pollination is important because it leads to the production of fruits we can eat, and seeds that will create more plants. Pollination begins with flowers. Flowers have male parts that produce very small grains called pollen. Pollination is the transfer of pollen grains from one flower to another.

And, so: What are the importance of insect pollinators?

Pollen Wasp

• Pollinators support biodiversity: There is a correlation between plant diversity and pollinator diversity.
• The pollinator population of an area is a great indicator of the overall health of an ecosystem.
• Some crops, including blueberries and cherries, are 90 percent dependent on honey bee pollination.
• Honey bees visit five million flowers to make one pint of honey.
• To produce 150 pounds of honey, bees cover a distance equal to 13 trips to the moon and back.
• 90 percent of the nation's apple crop is pollinated by bees.
• There are 4000 bee species in the U.S. 
• Increased yields and higher quality crops are benefits that growers and consumers realize from a healthy pollinator population, native or managed.
• Worldwide, approximately 1,000 plants grown for food, beverages, fibers, spices, and medicines need to be pollinated by insects and animals in order to produce the goods on which we depend.
• It’s estimated that there are about 2.4 million bee colonies in the U.S. today, two-thirds of which travel the country each year pollinating crops and producing honey and beeswax.

Gardening Power to the People: Attracting Pollinators to Your Garden

It's that time of year to think about flowering plants to add to your landscape this year. In this short video, Rebecca Anderson, Jefferson County Colorado Master Gardener, gives you tips for attracting bees and other pollinators to your garden.