University Place

>> Well, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for coming to hear me speak on this topic. If you've received your slide list, you'll see we have a lot of territory to cover, and this is an topic that an hour certainly wouldn't do justice. Again, I'm Mark Dwyer from Rotary Gardens down in Janesville, and if you haven't been, we've already celebrated 25 years of history with our anniversary last year, but we do encourage you to come and visit the gardens. Certainly, stop by our booth and get information. We were founded as an educational institution. Our mission is to promote horticultural education and appreciation for everyone. And that directly leads to this topic simply because for many years we've been preaching the importance of pollinators and tailoring many of our displays and even specific garden areas to attract pollinators. And not only bees, but our butterflies, our hummingbirds, all those critters we like seeing in our gardens. There's a lot of dialog out there now days about what are we doing in our gardens and our landscapes and our farm fields and on the Earth in general in terms of chemical use and how it affects some of these pollinators. And we'll touch on this to a certain degree, but I want to be forthright and say I'm not an expert on the science of all the pollinators. I can't identify the thousands of different bee species, but what I do have experience in is attracting a lot of bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds to our garden. And I'll show you a lot of plants that you should consider trying that will help do that and some ways you can treat your garden and encourage these pollinators to visit, which is, I think, a goal of all of us that are in the room today. So, follow along in your slide list. We'll go along at a pretty good clip, and a lot of the in-fill slides are just really nice pictures of pollinators to hopefully get you in the mood for spring and summer and realize your garden can not only be an attractant for these pollinators, but a real haven for many of these as well. Nice Swallowtail on Verbena there. That's a Lemon Queen. That's a perennial sunflower, by the way, called Lemon Queen, but seeing things like this is just, to me, mesmerizing. And if you've ever researched or read about bees, their system of communication is really extraordinary. And for us at the gardens, I always find it confusing when visitors come up and say there's a lot of bees in that area, you ought to do something about that.

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We are doing something about it.

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We're encouraging them in, and that's what's nice. And, yes, we have some bee stings out in the gardens and some of our staff receive those, but, overall, again, it's an endeavor that's certainly worthy of all of us. Perspective and scope, I don't want to read this to you, but it's important to realize this proportion. Two hundred thousand species of creatures service pollinators. Most are insects. The creatures I've mentioned, primarily bees. A thousand species include hummingbirds, bats, and even small mammals. So worldwide, again, there's a lot of pollinators. And the importance of pollination to life on Earth for humans is there's a direct correlation without a strong population of pollinators, there's sacrifices and implications. Seventy-five percent of all flowering plant species need pollinators for reproduction. They absolutely need them. Forty percent of our foods and beverages are directly dependent, in some degree, on pollinators, which is really amazing. And this last figure, $20 billion in products related to pollination. A lot of that's honey, which makes sense, but, again, the ramifications of losing our pollinators. And you've all seen the news, the talk of colony collapse disorder. What the heck is going on with these population of bees? Then you read little stories about out in Oregon, this outfit that sprayed a bunch of linden trees and killed 50,000 bees. And that relates to a certain use of chemical. And I'll talk a little bit about that, but I want to mention the research right now is still being conducted. There's a lot of dialog and even conflicting research as to what's happening. But I think we can all agree, opening up that chemical cabinet and applying chemicals in our garden does have implications for not only pollinators but our gardens in general. So I won't be on this soapbox telling you not to use chemicals, but be very careful in doing so, if that is your decision. At Rotary Gardens, we have a very strict chemical use policy. In fact, we're entirely reactive, with chemicals being the last thing we use. Meaning we're not just out there spraying willy-nilly. I have all the licenses. I can put on the white suit, the respirator and get out there, but I haven't done that in many years, and I don't plan on doing it. But, again, seeing a hummingbird on a Salvia, that's magical. Black Swallowtail on a Butterfly Bush. Pollinators provide an important service. The number of pollinators in an area also indicates the overall health of that ecosystem. And over the years, we see fluctuating populations of butterflies in our gardens. We're all somewhat aware of the plight of the monarchs and the fact that their population has dwindled so significantly, and a lot of it, there's a direct correlation with the availability of the larval food source, the milkweeds, for the caterpillars. So, again, our gardens, even our small gardens can be havens for some of these creatures. This is a Popcorn Plant.

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it smells like buttered popcorn, but look at the bee coming in for a landing here, and to me that's exciting. Hypericum, or St. John's Wort. So capturing these bees doing their thing, again this is the type of thing that we all like to see. That's Joe-Pye Weed with another bee. I was amazed by how many different types of bees are out there, and identifying is, again, not my strong suit, but we're always happy to see a wide range of pollinators in the gardens. One of our garden scenes on the left at Rotary Gardens, but how to attract pollinators. These are some generalizations, but we'll get more specific. Understand when I get into specific plant varieties, they're on your slide list, but I'm barely scratching the surface of what's out there in terms of available plants to help bring these pollinators into your garden. But have a diverse garden with a variety of flower colors, fragrances, and shapes. Native plantings-- native planting attract four times more pollinators than non-native. Limit, or ideally eliminate, your pesticide use. In the example on the left, that's a diverse planning of-- there's Rudbeckia, there's some amaranth in the distance, some petunias. At the gardens, we also have a small prairie restoration, which also attracts a lot of our pollinators as well. These are all cut flowers, of course, but the diversity of plantings for attracting pollinators, imagine this wheeled out into your backyard, you're going to see bees and butterflies all over these. And the wide range of what's available is truly amazing. As you do more research, and many of you maybe are aware of these things, there are some very common garden perennials and plants, even woody shrubs, that will attract pollinators through a long period of time. There's a hummingbird coming in on a Black and Blue Salvia. You'll see that plant a little bit later, which, incidentally, in case I neglect to mention it, that's our number one plant for bringing in hummingbirds. Black and Blue Salvia. There's a Buckeye on Heliotrope. The Clearwing Hummingbird Moth. There's years we never see these, and many times visitors will come and say you have these little hummingbirds all over the place. And if you've ever seen these things fly, it's like a helicopter. It's really pretty neat. Headed towards a rose. So when you're considering flowers, considering, of course, the timing and sequence of blooms. In our gardens, ornamentally, we want to see color from March all the way until the end of the season. Our pollinators also like the availability of blooming plants from that time frame. A lot of us are focused on our spring and summer gardens, but we see pollinators as early as late March at Rotary Gardens and all the way until hard frost and beyond. Mix up the flower architecture. Different shapes and forms. You'll find platforms, as I call them, like this purple coneflower in the left. Perfect landing strips for something like the swallowtail. But the arrangement of our flowers, the shapes will vary, and it's good to mix those up. The colors of blue, yellow, red, and violet are very attractive to a wide range of pollinators. Urban gardens with the highest diversity of plantings are the most attractive, and we've talked about that already. Here's Echinops or Globe Thistle. Knowing your plant is important. I'm showing you a lot of plants, and I won't have time to give you a lot of information, but when I show something like this, if you've grown it, you know it seeds prolifically. You get a lot of babies. So, again, knowing your plant and keeping it happy and healthy is important, but knowing the maintenance and maybe some of the other facts become important as well. Butterfly Bush with Swallowtail. You don't need a lot of space for your plantings. On the left, by the way, that's a Liatris, a perennial Liatris, which were covered with monarchs last year. Consider utilizing containers. Maybe you're limited in space. You don't have to plant an area the size of this room to attract pollinators. Even a simple container or a hanging basket with trailing begonias bringing in the hummingbirds. So you can start small and start expanding. Native selections, again, are four times more attractive. Include the larval food sources. We'll talk more about that, but so many of us are planting plants, I want butterflies, we want monarchs and Swallowtails. We're also planting plants for their babies, for the caterpillars. And that keeps them local and it keeps them interested in your garden. That's Mexican Sunflower with a Swallowtail. You'll see that annual again. Zinnias are truly amazing for attracting such a wide range of our pollinators, including hummingbirds. So we've considered colors and shapes and fragrances. They evolve, particularly fragrances aren't so much for humans. They were meant to attract pollinators. I've done talks on the moonlit garden, those plants that emit a scent at night, those sweet scents. That's to attract moths for pollination. It's not so much for us, but we can enjoy the byproduct of those emanations. Everything about the flower is important for maximizing that chance of pollination. Flowers evolve to have certain colors, forms, shapes to attract the pollinators who, in many cases, see in a different spectrum of light. That's that Verbena Bonariensis with a monarch. That's a hummingbird over Pentas or Egyptian Star Flower. Of course, we'd never catch the wings in motion in this case, but look at it working those flowers over. It's important to mention, hummingbirds certainly are pollinators, but a huge proportion of their diet are insects. It's not just about nectar or putting out the hummingbird feeder. They buzz around and get a lot of insects in the course of a day. I'm ashamed to say this is our chemical cabinet. Despite what I said earlier, we do have some chemicals. We've leaned more towards organic treatments. But I'm happy to say, these doors creek when we open them because we don't have to open them very often. And I'm happy to hopefully have a day when we don't deal with this. But really avoid the use of pesticides that are non-selective. The idea of, "Oh, I've got an insect problem." And you spray your garden and every insect dies. Non-selective, killing everything. And that's just not the way to go. And keep in mind the residue of these chemicals. If you have to use them, use the most selective and least toxic, and don't ever spray flowers. That certainly would affect your pollinators as well. If anything comes across, try to avoid using them at all. If attracting pollinators is your goal, really stop doing it. Neonicotinoids, sometimes called neonics or neonics, this is a classification of pesticide. This includes that scenario I mentioned earlier out in Oregon, the linden trees. They were in full bloom. Remember what I just said, applying pesticides when things are blooming-- a bad idea. But 50,000 bees dropping dead into a parking lot create a lot of press. Look it up. It's a real interesting story. And, ultimately, it was the misuse of this chemical. Now, the research on neonics, as they're called, is having some mixed reviews simply because when properly applied, they've been around for many years, it's relatively new, but a lot of the problems being tied into neonics is based on current research, and there is a correlation between our chemical use and certainly the loss of pollinators. Now, how significant that is, I'm not up here to tell you because I really don't know, and I'm not up to date on the most current research. But I'm happy to see that there's a close look at what these relationships are. So, this class of insecticides, their mode of action is affecting the central nervous system, paralysis or death. And that's why those bees just dropped and died. They're absorbed into the plant tissue, and also can be present in the pollen and nectar. So they're really quite a chemical in terms of its presence. The Xerces Society has an excellent article, one of the best ones I've read on neonics. So I would encourage you to do a little more research on it. And keep in mind with your chemical purchasing, if you do that, there still are a lot out on the market. There's a lot of grassroots movements on banning these. There's a lot of research being done in Europe and also Australia on these types of chemicals. Incidentally, on a happier note, on the left, that's Lemon Bergamot with a bee. They just love that herb. So, our pollinators paradise, this was a garden theme we did for two years. We attract pollinators throughout our 20 acres, but we had a very specific garden theme meant to attract as many pollinators as possible. We had some signing warning people there's going to bees in here, but we also wanted a lot of butterflies and hummingbirds. And we had a great year last year. Perhaps some of you did at home as well. So, this 2500-square-foot space, very successful. A wide range of diverse plantings. Bloom times ranging from Spring all the way through Fall. We also included these larval plants. But just some quick images of that space. By the way, the yellow you see there, that's that Popcorn Plant again, that fragrant Cassia. Kind of a fun tropical. We reused and repurposed some containers for uprights. This has actually been in my previous two talks on different topics, but the intent here again was to bring in a lot of these insects. And the hummingbirds were very prevalent as well. So really a hodgepodge of plantings, and what you're not seeing are some of these larval food plants. In the lower right there is parsley, which is one that some of the caterpillars will nibble on. And we all know milkweed is important for monarchs. The Asclepias in terms of having a host plant for the larval stage, the caterpillars. So I thought it was very ornamental as well. It was very sightly, but it was really nice to show signage and have interpretation to explain why this important and how this can be replicated in the home environment. Granted, what you're seeing are a lot of seasonal plants. So there's the expense, there's the soil preparations, and on a brief tangent, keeping these plants happy and knowing what they expect of you, providing appropriate soil, watering, whatever the inputs are, you certainly want healthy, happy plants, which would be the best thing for your pollinators. And another shot of that garden. So, diverse plantings, a little more comment here. You see in the foreground, this is Helenium or Helen's Flower. Veronicastrum in the upper right. That's the upright spires. This is a summer shot. You're talking late July into August. Some Monarda remnants on the left. All of these are attractive to bees and to a wide range of pollinators, and here are some perennial plants that year after year will provide that. And we're planting these for other reasons, of course. We like their color. Perhaps we're planting perennials for scent. Again, we have a lot of expectations of our plants, but what a great added bonus or maybe initial intent in attracting pollinators. There's Rudbeckia with Anemone. This is a later season shot. You're talking more into September here with Japanese Anemone and these Rudbeckias finishing up. So extending that window of interest. This was a shoreline planting at Chicago Botanic Garden. Diverse with Joe-Pye Weed, Hibiscus, a wide range of plants that will take periodic inundation when that water level fluctuates. But in this case, what I didn't catch in this image was the number of bees that were working up and down this corridor was really amazing. Here, Veronica-- in the upper right, some roses. So the diversity of planting should extend not just from annuals that you've seen earlier but our permanent plantings, such as perennials and woody plants. So you're landscape, again, can fulfill all your needs. It can be functional. Your backyard separating usage spaces, barriers, screens, whatever your goals are in terms of functionality, accommodating pollinators again could be the subscript or one of your sidelines. And, again, that pollinator's garden. You'll see this Verbena, the violet you see laced through there is one of the best annuals for butterflies. It's also an annual that reseeds itself everywhere. So if you've grown it, you might still have it, and you might have it year after year. But don't forget early Spring. On the left, that's Wind Anemone. That's blooming in early April. We see the earliest of bees and flies in March, if it's warm enough. So keep in mind those pollinators are out. So adding Spring-blooming color, whether it's bulbs, this would be a Fall-planted bulb, by the way, or earliest perennials. Crocus perhaps. We see bees all over Crocus in April. If you look closely in the lower left, the bulb here is Puschkinia or Striped Squill. Just a little bulb we plant every Fall, and this is a testament to the timing of pollinators. It's not just a July and August thing. They're out there looking around for nectar early on. Seasonal plants, granted, most of these are not natives. Some are, most are not, but they still attract a wide range of pollinators. And the majority of these need insect pollination to form seeds. We do a lot of annuals at the gardens. Keep them happy. Know your maintenance. On the left, that's Lantana, which is attractive to a wide range of pollinators. Extend your interest and availability. And what I mean by that is we have annuals that are blooming for a good portion of the summer. We encourage the majority of our annuals to be blooming by typically July into August, September, all the way to mid-October when we get hard frost. Our perennials can be equally valuable, but keep in mind, many of our perennials are two to three weeks. You might have some that rebloom, but the blooms in terms of attracting pollinators, a segue of perennial windows of bloom is efficient, but think about a wide range that annuals can fill with consistent bloom. And Lantana would be one of them. And the potential for mixing in annuals with your compositions. South American Verbena, this is absolutely covered with bees, butterflies. Gets three to four feet tall. Easy to grow from seed. What I mentioned earlier holds true. What's happening at the end of the season is about a million seeds are dropping down beneath this, and the next year we see them everywhere. They're easy enough to cull out, but you need to know it does reseed prolifically. This thing blooms nonstop for about three months. There it is at Olbrich Botanic Garden. It's kind of neat because it's wispy. It's tall and narrow. There's actually a compact variety about two-foot tall, but I like the four-foot look. Very candelabra-ish, wispy, transparent. Here in the herb garden. And here's some examples of, you know monarchs flock to them, Swallowtails. They're little domes so they're perfect for landing. What you're not seeing is a single flower. You're actually seeing about 80 flowers there in that cluster, and that butterfly will land and check out as many as possible. I'm not sure what type of butterfly that is, but that Proboscis is coming out and it's doing its thing. The shorter Verbenas are trailing Verbenas. Again, seasonals. Temari Patio Blue is just one of many. And selecting them for color, you can get pinks, whites, reds, there's a wide range of Verbenas and equally attractive to pollinators. Keeping these blooming can be a trick. You might need to do a little fertilization but great for a container or even a hanging basket. Homestead Purple is a great one. This tends to get almost the size of a small shrub but looks like this for two and a half months. It's constantly blooming. This is a great variety. Tithonia torch, if I were asked the best plant we've had for monarchs, Tithonia or Mexican Sunflower, and think about monarchs and the way they work south down into Mexico. Mexican Sunflower, Tithonia, this, by the way, gets about six feet tall. It's enormous. It's quite tall. You don't see this until August. So it's rarely offered in garden centers because it's not showing any color. It's this kind of felty green nothing. But we poke them in the back sunny borders throughout the pollinator's paradise, and all the sudden in late July and August these mammoth plants are covered with orange blossoms, and the monarchs flock to them. As a side note, there's yellow versions of this and there's compact versions of this as well, if six-foot's a little unwieldy for you. There it is in bloom. Of course, the bees will work it over. Swallowtails galore. Or, excuse me, monarchs. It's one of my favorite annuals, actually. And there's a hummingbird working one over as well. Fiesta del Sol is the compact orange. That's only three feet tall, and it has a good bud count. Lots of flowers. I will say, as a tangent, there's a lot of foliage, a lot of green to the proportion of orange, but it's a brilliant orange. It will be a big part of our primary color scheme this year. We're doing a bright red, orange, and yellow fiery flame type of scheme in front of our entrance garden, which should be fun. Ageratums or Floss Flowers, we're still talking about seasonals. Great selection. There's whites, pinks, and lots of blue ranges. Height can be six inches, can be up to two feet. But Ageratums, long bloom time. And remember, we want a big window covered with bees and butterflies. Gaillardias, native to the Southwest. These tend to be, many of them are perennials, short-lived perennials. They're blooming powerhouses in that they bloom nonstop from midsummer to hard frost. You'll get a lot of pollinators on these. Arizona Sun is one of dozens varieties. There are some that are specifically annual, one year, but many, again, you'll get two or three years out of them. Love the Salvias, particularly for hummingbirds. Summer Jewel Red, lots of hummingbirds on this. Only 18 to 24 inches tall. And the idea of red attracting hummingbirds, certainly that is a factor, but remember what I said earlier, that Black and Blue Salvia attracts as many hummingbirds as anything we have. It's more about flower form in those trumpets, that architecture. There's one coming in. Coming in for a landing or a hovering. I'm proud to say, we have four almost professional, pseudo professional photographers that are always out in our garden. These hummingbird shots are not mine, and they're capturing these. And I have to tell you, there's a fellow named Santos who he puts on a blue windbreaker, puts on his hood, and goes and sits by our black and blue Salvia for about an hour, and the hummingbirds are weary of him and then they accept him into the fold, so to speak. And they buzz all around him. They do their thing, and you'll see some unbelievable photos. He's a kindred spirit, I guess. If you want to go pink, there's pink. Summer Jewel comes in red, pink, and now white. And hummingbirds will like all of them, but, again, that trumpet form. Black and Blue Salvia, it's called black and blue, you see the calyx, or calyces, that support the flower petals have that black coloration, black stem, lots of blooms. These are not hardy in any way, shape, or form. We can get them up to three, almost four feet tall. Blooms all the way through summer. And very, look at, imagine a hummingbird. That's perfect orientation for them to come in there. There's two hummingbirds in this image, if you can track them down. Kind of a "Where's Waldo" situation. Upper right, lower left. These are, again, Santos. That's one of his buddies. Another Salvia called Gentian Sage. Same type of flower. Again, Salvias are on a central stalk with trumpet-shaped florets, which, again, are a great way to attract hummingbirds. And there's a wide range of colors in these types of Salvias as well. The Agastache, or Agastache as many call them, scented foliage, which is a benefit, but, again, another orientation of a lot of little tubular flowers and center stalks. Some of these marginally hardy. There are some that are zone five perennials. We plant them as seasonals. Sometimes they come back. They can range in height, depending on the variety, from 12 inches up to three to four feet. If we have mild winters with good snow cover, many of them will come back. Most are listed as zone five. So if you're up further North or in a colder climate, they can be trickier, but in one year's growth, they'll fill in very quickly. Bolero is one of many. Bolero is only less than two feet tall. Golden Jubilee is one of my favorites for having golden foliage. And these flower clusters, these cylinders, attract lots of pollinators, and it's, to me, a beautiful plant as well. And there's some bees working on the flowers. The Rudbeckias, these are annual Gloriosa Daisies, and when you think of Black-eyed Susans, Indian Summer is one of the best. Easy to grow. The flower diameter, by the way, is five to six inches. These are enormous. They'll bloom for about two months and then start to peter out, but there's a wide range of these Rudbeckias. Wonderful for butterflies in particular. And when you think about our perennial Rudbeckias, the value, of course, of leaving them up in winter for our birds and other additional wildlife habitat, we're talking about pollinators with a heavy focus on bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, but for a wildlife friendly garden, think about winter habitat, perennials for food, evergreens for shelter, providing water, all those elements. The National Wildlife Foundation has some great publications on creating a wildlife friendly backyard, and do look into that. Prairie Sun, love it. Green center. And you see the petals have a gradation of dark yellow to a white tip. That's another 30 to 36 incher. Love the petunias as do the Clearwing Hummingbird Moths. So petunias, again, will be visited. And Calibrachoa, I showed this in my annual talk. Calibrachoa, or million bells, look like mini petunias. Many of these are great for hanging baskets. And this was a shot last year with hummingbirds working these over. And trumpet shaped blooms. Very petunia-like. Cosmos, one of the greatest old fashioned annuals to attract pollinators, particularly butterflies. Last year we had a cosmos collection. We had like 80 varieties, and it was just amazing the differences in these. From 12-inch tall to six footers. There's also cosmos called Sulfur Cosmos that run the yellows, oranges, and reds. Those are also beautiful. Sonata White. There's so many varieties out there. But they're great in our sunny gardens. There's that Popcorn Plant, the Cassia. Again, if you're into a novelty for fragrance, these are certainly not hardy for us. We do try to overwinter them in greenhouses. That's tricky. But in our scented garden, everyone's smelling this thing. It's really a neat plant, so do look for it. And in our hot summers, a one-foot tall plant installed in late May by the end of summer will be six to seven feet. They get big. Zinnias, again I've alluded to those earlier. I have a lot of these are order for our orange, red, and yellow theme, but Zowie! Yellow Flame is just one of many. And some of the research I did on this topic mentions that single zinnias, meaning not the double forms that have a lot of petals, single zinnias tend to be more attractive to pollinators. I'm not sure if there's a difference, I'm not sure why that is, but I saw it in multiple sources. Yellow Flame is semi-double, but, again, you'll see some that look like pompoms almost. Those aren't the best. It's the single flat ones. And sorry for the generalization, but I don't know much more about it. Swallowtails. Had a good year for swallowtails as well. Black swallowtails. If I misidentify any of these, holler it out. It's amazing. We've had years where we don't remember seeing a monarch or a swallowtail, and that's pretty sad. And last year, being so mild and relatively cool, we were pretty surprised. And there's some zinnias just covered with monarchs. Crocosmia, also called Montbretia. This is really, it's planted as a bulb. You can buy it as a tuber, essentially. Marginally hardy for zone five, but we plant it as a seasonal because we're rewarded with these clusters of red blooms. You can get Crocosmia in oranges and yellows, but the Lucifer, this red one, hummingbirds just love it. By the way, you can dig these up and store the tubers like you would dahlias or cannas, Elephant Ears. So you can perpetuate them. Begonias, California Sunlight, one of many in terms of trailers. And this is a nice one. This is a hummingbird magnet in terms of a hanging basket. So, consider positioning these in areas. Keep in mind that hummingbirds might be weary of there's other things that, how should I say this? If there's other elements in close proximity that cause them concern, they won't visit this. So have it in an open spot where they may circle it to make sure everything's safe. So if this were hanging up, I guess what I'm saying, like off a tree branch and there's a lot of other branches and leaves, they might be weary of predators. So open hung is the way to go on these. Fuchsias, love fuchsias. This happens to be a variegated one called Firecracker. So, ornamentally, pretty neat. Fuchsias, of course, have those trumpet shaped dangling blossoms. Even at a level like this, hummingbirds will visit these. Ideally, in an elevated container or trailing fuchsias in hanging baskets will bring in pollinators as well. So do consider the merit of containers. Containers can be a topic in and of itself. Selecting containers, proper soil preparation, drainage, plant selection, but by selecting pollinator-friendly plants, your containers, again, become small refuges and they will be visited. At the Ball Seed Trial Gardens, I love this Rudbeckia Petunia. There's the Verbena in the center. And these were covered with bees. Briefly, perennials. What you're seeing here is a combination of Cardinal Flower Lobelia. It can be tricky to establish, as a side note, but those blossoms, very attractive for hummingbirds. Behind it is Joe-Pye Weed, which, again, knowing your plants is important because happy Joe-Pye Weed can become a burden because if it's in wetter soils, it keeps widening out. So do keep that in mind. But these are two plants that like the same conditions, wetter soils, and both are very attractive to our pollinators. A summer vignette. Yarrow in the lower left, Purple Coneflower, and Hemerocallis or Daylilies all are great for pollinators. Keep in mind, what you're seeing is I could never take this image in May or June or September/October. I'm catching a window. So in this garden space where these plants are in drifts, it's important, again, to have the other ends of that window. There has to be other plantings to carry the pollinator interest from early spring all the way until late season. So there's nothing wrong with this, but, again, this represents, collectively, a very relatively brief window in the summer, three to four weeks. Purple Coneflowers, Dynamite, lots of butterflies visiting these. Cheyenne Spirit is a seed-grown strain. A lot of different colors. I can't even begin to keep up with the colors that are out there. There's all the oranges and reds, and what's important is to select varieties that have good, strong stems. They're all beautiful in the catalogs, without a doubt, but do a little more research on those that are stem sturdy, as we call them. Many are just floppy, very weak stemmed. So, select some good ones. Cheyenne Spirit's Dynamite for a wide range. PowWow Wild Berry, great shade of violet purple. I could do entire talks on coneflowers and their breeding, but, in essence, if you look closely, there's a bee in the lower mid-center there. There's a couple bees in that image. Echinacea are great when we talk about native plants. These are varietal selections of our native Echinacea Purpurea. Not necessarily long-lived, by the way. They don't live for 10 years, but you'll get a couple good years out of them. They may reseed. Yellow Coneflower, looks like yellow shuttlecocks. These are great for pollinators and a very overlooked native. This is a dynamite plant. Three to four feet tall. And love the perennial Rudbeckias. You saw Indian Summer and Prairie Sun, which were annual Gloriosa Daisies. Little Gold Star is one of the perennials. Same thing I said about Joe-Pye Weed, Happy Rudbeckia in open damp soils spreads. It colonizes. So you can divide them, spread them, share them. They do take up real estate. So, keep that in mind, but they have a long bloom period. And this is something we'll leave up in winter for the seeds for birds. That's a fairly short one. Zagreb is one of the many Coreopsis or tickseeds. This is a very common perennial but a good one. And many of you know Moonshine? No, is that right? The other Coreopsis. Kind of a lighter yellow. Zagreb for us-- look at the bud count on one plant. That's probably a thousand flowers. That's really amazing. Another nice Coreopsis. This is Tall Tickseed, Lightning Flash. By the way, it has golden foliage. Three to four feet tall. Lots of flowers. So the Coreopsis are wonderful, whether they're annual or perennials, are great for our pollinators. Jupiter's Beard, bluish-green foliage, fragrant blossoms. Comes in pink and white. This is a great garden perennial that's been around for a long time. And a long period of bloom as well. Shasta Daisies, love Shasta Daisies. If you've grown them, you know they like to spread seed. They like to germinate in all sorts of places. But for a clear, white daisy form, great for our butterflies and our bees. Brightside is one of dozens and dozens of these Shasta Daisies. You can get doubles, double the petals, fluted petals, look like little tubes. Great varieties. There's even some that have yellow casting to them now, a yellowish look to them. The Agastaches, B lue Fortune. This is a perennial. This is hardy to zone five. And this is a grouping at the Chicago Botanic Garden. It looks like a blue river. In the back right, you see Joe-Pye Weed, and unbelievable amount of bees. In fact, in terms of a genera, a genus, Agastache, I see more bees on this plant than anything else. If you're allergic to bee stings, you probably don't put this by the front door where you have to brush by it every time you go in and out. But out in a sunny spot, you'll see a lot of pollinators. Fragrant foliage, long bloom time, and, again, a good plant. Yarrows, same deal. Clusters of many flowers. And this is, again, these horizontal platforms in terms of architecture. A nice landing strip for our butterflies in particular. Sedums or Stonecrops, Matrona is one of many. Blooms are very late in the season. Stonecrops prefer leaner soils. Many of these have these sedums. All of us know autumn joy, which has been around forever. If you have tall, floppy sedums, your soil is probably too rich. They prefer leaner soils. And, ultimately, don't be shy about cutting them back. I'm on a tangent here, but in mid-June, when they're about this tall, cut them way back. It's going to be a fleshy mess, but they'll rejuvenate and they'll be shorter and more compact and less prone to floppage. Matrona is a nice one with dark foliage. And that's, we're talking a little later in the season here. Later summer, our garden phlox, David is a great one for mildew resistance. Also fragrant. Bloom time is over a month, and we're getting into July and August when we're seeing these. Nice clear white. I like Shockwave because of the variegation. So this is contributing interest early on because of that variegation, and as it blooms for that four to five weeks in late summer, carrying over interest for pollinators but also fragrance. Lots of nice variegated ones out there as well. Pick your mildew resistant varieties, but realize mildew resistant is not mildew proof. It's all conditional based on the year. Obedient Plant, there are some Obedient Plants, which are thugs. Side note, they're called Obedient Plant, if you've ever grown it, you can move the flowers and they'll stay in place. They will rotate. They pivot, the little florets. It's really pretty neat. The variegated form stays a little more constrained. There's other varieties like Miss Manners, that tends to not run. But I like Variegata because it's late in the season, it blooms for over a month. This is August into September. But benefit of variegated foliage, tons of bees, see it blooming from the bottom up, tall spires, and butterflies will work it over pretty well, also. And you're seeing, obviously, a correlation. Many of you already know this, but those tubes, that's what those hummingbirds are going for. Monardas or Bee Balms, absolutely dynamite. Keep in mind what I said about garden phlox. A lot of the Monardas are prone to powdery mildew, the whitish substance. In many cases, that's conditional based on a cool spring or really wet summer. And there are mildew resistant varieties. Jacob Cline is one of the best reds. And what you're looking at here, they're in the mint family, so if you grow Monarda, you know they start to spread out and you need to divide them, and, keep in mind, they will take up some real estate. But individual flowers, each of those clumps is actually a cluster of radial florets. There's the center, but each one of those is a tube around the side. So our pollinators will work over individual flowers on each of those attachments. Purple Rooster, this actually came, it was a selection out of the Flower Factory Nursery over in Stoughton. This is sold nationwide now, but very mildew resistant, not really tall, 30 inches in height, but great shade of purple. Now, you can get Monardas in a wide range of colors and more compact versions, tall ones. If you have Monarda that starts getting leggy and looking a little petered out by late July, cut it to the ground, and you'll see a resurgence of brand new growth. You may get rebloom, but what we at least have is a cleaner plant that's not floppy. I'm on another tangent here, but so many of our floppy perennials by late summer will benefit by severe shearing. And again, that cleans them up and you get new growth, sometimes new blooms. And Monarda is no exception. We're very vigorous with it. And there's one of the Bee Balms. And look at that Hummingbird Moth. Look at the proboscis ready to just coil out and do its thing. I think Santos took that picture as well. That's really amazing. Veronicas, you saw some earlier. Upright spires, a lot of little florets on that spike. A wide range of Veronicas out there. Pure Silver has near white foliage. And, again, I'm showing you varieties. These are certainly endorsements of these varieties, which I think are good, but understand there's a lot of other selections out there. And Liatris, the Gayfeathers. Meadow Blazing Stars. Liatris Spicata has been around a long time. In our pollinator's paradise, we had maybe 50 or 60 Liatris, four or five species. There's a lot more than that, by the way. Unbelievable attractant for bees and particularly monarchs. And you'll see some enticing pictures here. But they tend to like damper soils. They're fairly short-lived. They're native, which is nice. So, very adaptable to our soils, but great in mass. Kobold is a compact version of Liatris Spicata. So only in the 18-inch range, but there's some great species that get quite tall. Pycnostachya, this thing is four feet tall, and these candelabras are just covered with pollinators. They're really quite amazing. And what's interesting, remember Obedient Plant? You saw the spike? I said it's blooming from the bottom up. Liatris blooms from the top down. So if you look on the top on that upper left, you're seeing flowers, the oldest florets are opening, and on the bottom they have yet to open. Bloom time is about a month. Liatris Ligulistylis, this thing is also three to four feet. Meadow Blazing Star. Again, damper soils it prefers, but just covered with monarchs. A great plant. If you like white, here's a white form of Liatris Spicata. Regardless, you're guaranteed pollinators with these plants. And look at that. That was that VanDusen Garden over in Vancouver. What a great patch. In a little bit of a depression. Lavender, if you can grow it, it can be a little challenging for us, particularly in wetter soils and with tough winters. It's a sub-shrub It's semi-woody. Lavender shouldn't die to the ground. It should retain some buds. But drainage is so vital. And we only have a couple decent lavender plants are Rotary Gardens. This is a nursery out West, but imagine this row, what it would attract for pollinators. Really an amazing plant in many ways. Later in the season, the anemones. You saw Japanese anemones earlier. This Honorine Jobert, white Japanese anemone. There's a bloom time from, really, late July/early August all the way through September. So a dynamite perennial. September charm, another nice one. Look into these anemones. You've seen the range of anemones. You saw the Wind Flower earlier, that blue bulb I mentioned that's blooming in April. Here's the tail end of the season. Height ranges on these anemones are 24 to 40 inches typically. There's a wide range of them. Goldenrods, of course, have gotten a bad rap for the hay fever thing, which is not true. I think we know it's ragweed. What's neat to see is developments in compact and Dwarf Solidagos. So there are some goldenrods that are thugs. Canadian Goldenrod can overtake an area very quickly. Still very attractive to pollinators, but something like little lemon at only 18 to 24 inches, this is the front of the border, late blooming, colorful perennial that will attract a lot of your later season pollinators. As a lot of gardens are starting to wane, this can take over the show in September. Fireworks, Rough Stem Goldenrod, look at how it gets its name. All these sprays of yellow flowers. Same impact and same attractiveness for late season pollinators. And, certainly, asters go a long way. Do focus on mildew resistant asters, and try to focus on more compact ones. I think many of us have the old New England or New York asters that tend to get four to five feet, mildew, lose the lower leaves, and splay open. There's a lot more compact varieties. So keep that in mind. The genus has changed. I haven't even kept up with some of the Latin changes. But Vibrant Dome is a good one for bud count. Raydon's Favorite. This is Aster Oblongifolius. Fragrant Aster. It's the foliage, by the way, that's fragrant. But this is early October. You're seeing these blooms. And there's monarchs in the very tail end of the season. So your larval food sources, that's a monarch caterpillar on milkweed on the left. This is a good thing. And this is a type of thing in a pollinator garden providing milkweed, whether it's common milkweed, Butterfly Weed, what have you, valuable. There's been some research that's showing that some of the more tropical Asclepias that are being grown further South are perennializing, and it's actually keeping monarchs further north than they should be, and they're actually not making it as far south as they need for overwintering. That doesn't affect us so much, but any of the Asclepias are beneficial, including the seasonals. Research and include larval host plants as part of your paradise. Place plants where leaf damage can be tolerated. They're going to nibble on them. And my photographers I sent out in our pollinator's paradise and I said look for caterpillars too. Don't disturb them. I want to get photos, and they did and it was nice to see. Here's your common milkweed forming pods and dispersing seed. And that's one of the problems is the loss in milkweed along our farm field edges, our highways, and there's nice to see some movements in trying to reestablish these milkweed corridors along our highways and other locations because the population of common milkweed has been diminished so much. It's very remnant population oriented. So limited habitat for, really, laying the eggs for these caterpillars. Here's our Butterfly Weed. Also comes in a yellow. Can take a wide range of soils, by the way, but a nice summer bloomer. And there's a couple bees on that image there. Really beautiful. And, of course, the flowers are attracting the pollinators, but the monarchs are going to be laying their eggs on the underside of the leaves. Parsley is attractive to a wide range of pollinators for laying egg masses and for caterpillars. That's curled and flat leaf parsley mixed together. Dill, Anethum. Dill is wonderful, particularly for Swallowtail Caterpillars. And if you like fresh dill, put it in a container right outside on the back porch, and you can utilize it. And there's a Swallowtail Caterpillar working on dill at my house. Nibbling away. Phenol, also equally valuable. It's a perennial for us and tends to have beautiful flowers, and we select varieties for, really, they're very ornamental in terms of wispiness. But if you see some caterpillars on them, that's a good thing. And there it is mixed with a Celosia. Quickly, some woody plants. Lilacs, now, talking about seasonal attractiveness, lilacs blooming in May. Lots of pollinators. We love the harbingers of Spring, particularly when fragrance arrives. And the smell of lilacs, I think most of us enjoy. It also brings in a wide range of pollinators that have already been active for well over a month. The fragrant Viburnums adding a lot of scent to your garden. This is Korean Spice Viburnum, by the way. They're some great selections with a range of heights. Bloom time is only three to four weeks in spring, but a couple flowers of this, this is a close-up, by the way, they're snowball sized flowers. Unbelievable fragrance. So one Korean Spice Viburnum at peak bloom in a container right here you would all be able to smell it. So it's great for us to enjoy. Pollinators love Viburnums in general as well. And there's a wide range of native species. Also non-native ones, but viburnum is a great three-season interest plant. Spring flowers, typically good fruiting, berries for wildlife, and also Fall color. The Buddleia, Butterfly Bushes, if I were giving this talk farther South, I might get booed because butterfly bushes are reseeding everywhere. They're everywhere. They're over, the seed is viable in warmer winters. And although I haven't seen reseeding here, there's really a rush to develop relatively seedless varieties. Flutterby Petite Dark Pink is almost seedless, so they're promoting this nationwide. But again, down in Texas and further South, this would be on some weed lists. And I don't know exactly what states are banning it at this point. But for us, Butterfly Bush may overwinter. It's semi-woody. Depending on our winter and snow cover, we may see it come back. Two winters ago, you all lived through that monstrosity, we lost every one of them, but in a warm winter with decent snow cover, the buds are viable under snow level. And it comes back up. Regardless, it's worth the space because they bloom all the way until frost and you'll get a lot of pollinators. Not just butterflies, but plenty of bees. So it's nice to take images like that. Another Hummingbird Moth. And, again, what I said earlier, you're maybe noticing a lot of these flowers have a lot of individual flowers forming the masses. So they are extremely attractive. Caryopteris, called Bluebeard or Fall Spirea, another semi-woody plant. Sort of like Buddleia or Butterfly Bush. So you might lose it in a harsh winter, but what's great about it is it starts blooming in August and blooms all the way until frost. Absolutely covered with bees. What I said about the Agastaches earlier, same deal. So if you're worried about bee stings, and I have a coworker who's literally deadly allergic, he got stung on the, is it the carotid artery, a couple years ago and his heart stopped. Anyway, he's fine now, but he had a horrible reaction. So I'm not speaking lightly about bee stings. We're always prepared for our visitors and such, but this will bring them in like you would not believe. There's also variegated varieties. Interesting foliage, but they don't do this until very late in the season. But when they're doing this, a lot of the other things are finishing up or are done. So worth the space. Most are three to four feet tall in a single season. Don't forget water is vital for wildlife in general. And not necessarily a birdbath per se, but drinking reproduction, particularly for butterflies, is important. Birdbaths, mud puddles I'll address, even wet sand. Place stones for access, and what I mean by that is if it's a birdbath or some sort of a water feature, provide stones for elevation so they don't drowned, in essence. That's also good if you have rodents or other critters that try to get in the water. You don't want to come out the next morning and have them floating. So provide a means of egress or landing so they can sip away. Change the water as often and sterilize these things. Whether it's your birdbaths, whatever water features you happen to have, also your hummingbird feeders, which we'll talk a little bit about. All too often they're not sanitized, and it doesn't take long for those to get some mildew. So here's a rock in the middle of a birdbath that can be effective, again, to save a creature that might get up in that water, but also as a landing platform for butterflies. Mud puddles, the comment here, you see some Swallowtails. What's going on here? My understanding, there's a certain amount of salt in these sand piles. These are the males, and based on, I don't want to sound too out of tune with this process, but it's based on reproduction and to recharge minerals. So the males, after whatever happens, they have to rehydrate and, again, their salt. So these mud puddles, you'll see in many butterfly gardens they'll provide flat stones or areas of open sand that they'll hydrate or add water to, and it's for this purpose. So do keep that in mind. And most of our gardens with ample rainfall will provide this anyway. This was a shot at the Expo a couple years ago. Hummingbird feeders. My feelings on them, they do attract hummingbirds, but what I said earlier, cleaning them and sterilizing them is pretty important. You don't pack it away in Fall and then pull it out in May or June and then just fill it with you sugar water. Clean them up as nicely as you can. These are quite ornamental. And, again, they're effective. But remember what I said earlier. If you can provide flowers, even better for hummingbirds, but keep in mind, they're interested in insects as well. So, my mom's had hummingbird feeders for years, and they're very active. It's quite amazing, but, again, keep in mind the sterilization. Butterfly houses, you might buy these. You put a couple sticks in them in the hope that butterflies will go through those little cracks, lay their cocoons. That rarely happens. I'm just short of saying they're a novelty, but all the research I've done on these, not used very often. Butterflies are very selective on where they lay their cocoons, and it's not necessarily in a box with a couple of sticks. Those are fake butterflies, by the way.

LAUGHTER

Side note

Pollinator hotels, saw a lot of these out in Europe, and what you're seeing here, on the right, a lot of tubes, cylindrical openings. Not all our bees create hives or wasp nests or whatever they happen to be. Creatures like Mason Bees will use openings like this. So there's a lot of pollinators that will use cracks, crevices, openings. Situations like this, like this. This was really neat. I didn't know what the heck this was when I first saw it. Notice hardware cloth on the front so it can't be accessed by rodents or other critters, but the bees can fly through and select a wide range of habitats. Really neat. If you get Internet savvy, Google pollinator hotels. It's really super neat. And, again, there's benefit. At Rotary Gardens, we've put a couple of smaller versions of this out for the Mason Bees, and you don't import the bees. You put something like this out and the bees find it, and they've been fairly effective. I pillaged this from the Internet, but here's a wide range of hallow bamboo, other openings, drilled holes into cut log pieces. Pretty interesting. So research. Notice that bee has a little sensor on it. This is some of that research in Australia. They're tracking what these bees are doing, where they're going, what's going on with this colony collapse disorder. So for the past eight, nine years, I've heard different stories. There's been a lot of blame laid on pesticide usage, which is not decreasing, by the way. I think we all know that. As home gardeners, I believe we all do what we can in minimizing chemical inputs. Maybe not with a full understanding in what's happening agriculturally, but, regardless, the tie-in with chemical usage is there. But this colony collapse disorder, there might some other implications. Climate change, whatever, but it'll be interesting to see what they come up with, and these studies being done worldwide, I think will put some perspective on it. Those scientists that follow pollinators I don't think have ever been more concerned about dwindling populations of our pollinators and how that has a future effect on agricultural crops. Think about how important all that pollination is for making money and selling these food stuffs that are reliant. So that's what it boils down to to me, the importance of making these pollinators happy. So designing for continuous succession of blooms, including those larval host plants, native plants, if you can go that route or you're interested in that, equally effective. Avoid pesticides, ideally eliminate them from your use. Supplying water we just discussed. Do more research on this topic. And what I do is this pollinator.org is another great reference. The Xerces Society I mentioned earlier. There's some great nonprofit organizations. Their existence is meant to educate us about the value of pollinators and how to make them happy in our gardens. And I think if we all do our part, we really can make an impact and see more of these Clearwing Hummingbird Moths. They're coming in on milkweed. A hummingbird resting on phenol. Not sure what type of butterfly this is, but looks like it's on marigold. There's that Verbena Bonariensis again being worked over. There's a monarch. There's also a Hummingbird Moth flying from upper left to the right coming through. What a great shot. Briefly, Rotary Gardens, we sort of look like this right now. Some of you heard about our pretty neat light show we had in December. Put it on your calendar next year. We have a walk-through light show. 400,000 lights. You get to see the garden in a different perspective. If you haven't been to the gardens, do visit us. Visit our booth for information. But you'll see things like this. We do a lot of flowers, a lot of annuals, and we're happy to say I feel very pollinator friendly. And that ties into our chemical use policy. Our fern and moss garden. We have vast collections of certain types of plants. We have over 4,000 types of plants throughout the gardens with a wide range of spring blooming bulbs, summer perennials, lots of seasonals. Imagine the pollinators going through there. Almost everything we talked about is in there. Our sunken garden. We have lots of events, lots of educational opportunities. So do get online and see what we're doing. Thematic gardens like our Japanese garden, there with Redbud blooming. I've done a blog, online diary. Everyone's blogging now days, but mine's very specific to Rotary Gardens. I include pictures of the day. In the winter, I'll pick different themes. I've done it for maybe seven years. If you Google or type in that address that's on your sheet, you can kind of see what's happening at the gardens. I also promote the importance of our volunteers, which is monumental to what we're doing with everything. This was our all-America selections collection a couple years ago. We also have a very good website, updated actively. Has our current calendar of events. And I'll put the onus on you. This little fellow, not even one at this point, or maybe just barely one. Here's a future gardener. And it's hard to envision the Garden Expo in 25 years. Is this next generation interested in gardening? Do they have the time? Do they have the interest? Have they connected the importance of pollinators to what they're eating. The connection of food grown in your garden. It's not just about grocery stores. Food safety. I could go on and on with my soapbox here, but, in essence, again, that pesky neighborhood kid, your own children, your grandkids, get them out there and get some work out of them but get them connected to the garden. With that, I'll say thank you. Drive safely, have a great day, and thank you for your time, everyone.

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