At the beginning of this journey I have a lot of questions. What are native plants to the Front Range of Colorado and what are the native insects that feed on them? How much of my own personal garden will I need to change? Can I still have a lawn or does it need to go? How can people who don't have space for gardens help? How do I pull pollen into this blog? (I am currently building a pollen atlas on this website. Go take a look .) Super overwhelming, I know, but questions are a great place to start. Scientists are always questioning the world around them and looking for the answers. I am going to pare down the answers in shorter, easy to understand, and "How can I help" segments, for the scientist in all of us.
Question one: what are native plants to the Front Range of Colorado and what are the native insects that feed on them? Easy to answer, right? Not, so much. To my limited knowledge there are not many websites, studies, podcasts and blogs that focus on this question (or so I thought). For the answers I went to my go to place for answers in gardening, PBS Create Channel Growing a Green World with Joe Lamp'l (https://www.growingagreenerworld.com/). Joe Lamp'l also has a podcast called the Joe Gardner Show, https://joegardener.com/podcasts/ . Joe focuses on the science of plants and sustainability of this earth through gardening. I figured this would be a good place to start and as I listened I had no idea the extent of the wealth of knowledge that is there.
As I started to listening to his many podcasts (I focused on pollinators and native plants) my eyes and mind were opened to two national societies I knew very little or nothing about; The National Wildlife Federation and The Xerces Society (here is the link to the podcasts https://joegardener.com/?s=023&id=m ). These are great organizations that support local and national conservation efforts. They both have resources for your local area and it is easy to donate to them without a lot of money needed. Here are the links to their home pages.
The National Wildlife Federation nwf.org
Xerces Society xerces.org
The National Wildlife Federation focuses on " Uniting all Americans to ensure wildlife thrive in a rapidly changing world" (nwf.org) . They are a federation of organizations that focus on wildlife conservation and they have a program that is called Garden for Wildlife https://www.nwf.org/Garden-for-Wildlife that focuses on how to create habitat all across the USA. They have many resources to tap into, that help you learn to garden for pollinators and they have a program where you can certify your landscape into a Certified Wildlife Habitat®.
The Xerces Society focuses on "Protecting the Life that Sustains Us. Since 1971, The Exerces Society has worked to protect invertebrates and their habitats. Please stand with us." (xerces.org) They also have a landscape program called Bring Back the Pollinators and you can have your place become a Certified Pollinator Habitat, the Pollinator Protection Pledge, and sooooo much more (I will focus more in-depth on each of these organizations in future blogs).
The more I dug, the more overwhelmed and exited I became. I found myself saying "I want my yard to be a Certified Pollinator Habitat!" My garden/yard is not yet ready to be certified with either The Xerces Society or The National Wildlife Federation but I did sign the Pollinator Protection Pledge (here is the link xerces.org/pollinatorprotectionpledge/ ). I pledged to grow, protect and provide for pollinators, avoid pesticides ad spread the word. It is not much, yet, but it is something and you can join me too! Let me know if you decided to take the pledge and join me in this journey to save the pollinators! See you next time as we talk more about the Xerces Society and The Butterfly Pavilion here on the Front Range of Colorado.
Comments