Rock garden! Pussytoes! Native prairie plants! This is a combination of short native plants. The common blue eyed grass has its tiny blooms. And the pussytoes plant has a flower spire. Everyone is close to the ground in this rock garden. The photograph was taken in the evening sun on May 11, 2025. #nativeplants, #Bloomscrolling, #minnesota, #gardening, #pollinators, #zone4b.

A few May wildflower garden shots. Bugle, red campion and sweet woodruff. The bugle is alive with insects from dawn to dusk, even in the shade. The woodruff has spread from a small patch in the garden to filling virtually every available space. Very recommended for indestructible fragrant ground cover!
#garden #gardening #wildflowers #wildflowergarden #wildlifegardening #wildlifegarden #bumblebee #bumblebees #insects #pollinators #PollinatorsNotPesticides

Bombus vagans, half-black bumblebee, on the rhubarb flowers.

Looks like it's the Dielis pilipes, Hairy-footed Scoliid Wasp!

These bees live in the ground, maybe sorta solitary but in communities? Lots of holes in the dry sandy silt ground where they live. The fly around in patterns around the nests. I thought maybe some sort of cuckoo bee but I'm not sure. They're big, about 25mm long. Some kind of bee, wasp, hornet. More pics in the reply.

Would you bee my friend? I know many people don't like carpenter bees because the females burrow into wood, but I think they're one of the cutest bees. And the males can't sting. #bees #pollinators #insects #Illinois #nature #photography #spring

For the past few years I've been replacing lawn with clover. It really thrives in this soil, better than the grass in fact. It also has allowed the wild strawberry to spread. #Gardening #Zone5 #Clover #Pollinators

Lots of ants, flies, and beetles have been showing up in the pawpaw patch. Apparently highly attractive to scorpionflies (Mecoptera), too, though I've yet to see them. #annonaceae #pawpaw #tree #plants #flies #ants #pollinators #flowers #insects

Saw some honey bees on the rhubarb, maybe 2 or 3. I'll probably give it a few days and cut them off when they start making seeds.

A warm Friday in the yard, wildflowers and pollinators are out. Here a blue flower (California Blue Bell?) and an insect, any input appreciated.

My old plum tree might be going overboard. Some of the bumblebees are terrifyingly large! #Bloomscrolling #pollinators

#FalmouthMaine! Saturday, May 10th! Pollinator Parade Celebrates 10 Years!

by Molly Woodring, May 7, 2025

"Local families, including pollinator enthusiasts of all ages, will gather at #MaineAudubon’s #GilslandFarm on Saturday, May 10, 10 am to 1 pm, for the 10th annual Pollinator Parade and Picnic, to honor the winged species essential to our #ecosystems.

"Since 2015, Birth Roots and Maine Audubon have partnered to raise awareness about the vulnerability of the pollinator species that are critical to ecosystem health and our food systems, and the ways that people can support pollinator habitat. Many pollinator populations are in decline, and Pollinator Parade addresses this serious concern with a dose of family-friendly whimsy: families dressed as Monarch Butterflies can play and celebrate together, and then take home a milkweed plant that will support the real Monarchs due to arrive in Maine later this summer. That’s hundreds of new native plants spread across the landscape and even more photos shared that feature adorable costumes and a call to action, all before naptime.

"The event is inspired by festivals that honor the Monarch’s arrival in Mexico each fall, at the southern tip of the 3,000 mile migration that butterflies have completed annually for an estimated 20,000 years. The colorful parade, which starts at 11:30 am, invites young children, parents, and grandparents to embody a myriad of beautiful bugs, birds, and flowers—while calling attention to the urgent need for habitat protection and restoration.

" 'The #PollinatorParade is more than a picnic, parade, or dance party—it’s a call to action,' says Leah Deragon, Birth Roots’ co-founder and Director of Mission and Impact. 'We hope to capture the public’s imagination and inspire hearts and minds to take steps toward preserving pollinators for our grandchildren’s grandchildren.'

"Organizers aim to generate more substantive conversations about policies and the everyday actions people can take to care for pollinators—from planting #NativeSpecies and pollinator-friendly gardening, to reducing #pesticide use.

"This festival is one of hundreds like it nationwide, a growing movement since the late ‘90s to recognize and prioritize the role pollinators play to sustain all life.

"The Pollinator Parade is a ticketed event to buffer the impact on the Gilsland Farm #wildlife sanctuary during soft springtime soil. Gilsland Farm Audubon Center is located at 20 Gilsland Farm Road, Falmouth." [See below for registration link]

Source: https://maineaudubon.org/news/pollinator-parade-celebrates-10-years/

Registration link: http://www.hisawyer.com/birth-roots/schedules/activity-set/1386337

More info: https://maineaudubon.org/events/pollinator-parade-tenth-anniversary/

I was only supposed to go to Sønderborg to pick up a bat detector from the Danish Bat Society, and then some supplies from the hardware store.

Then native plants happened. The Danish Society for Nature Conservation has managed to get the supermarket chain Rema1000 to sell native plants every spring and I just happened to drive by. In my defense, I was left unattended

If you are a USian lawnlord, you may look down in the early Spring and see many tiny bluish flowers and determine that you have weeds to remove and pull out some weedkiller.

OTOH if you were trying to improve life for early #pollinators, very important, you would let some of these small but complex flowers have their time in the sun.

It's not native to the US and is weedy, but flowers even in late winter, so it can be an important pollen and nectar source when there are few other choices.

Foragers have been known to make tea or decorate foods with this edible plant and flower.

Common Field Speedwell (Birdeye Speedwell or Birds-Eye Speedwell are other names)
Veronica persica

7-May-2025
Why bumbling #bees prefer yellow #flowers to red – and why it matters for #biodiversity

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1083051 '#science #ecology #pollinators

#NoMoreLawns #biodiversity #pollinators #gardening

Americans better get their tariff gardens in soon this year.

https://www.noemamag.com/the-cult-of-the-american-lawn/ https://flipboard.social/@CultureDesk/114474058144369458

Some pond life. Hoverflies and flowering pond plants. #Pollinators #PondLife #Garden

For the Manufactured Ecosystems art show about the future of pollination I have been looking at what nature-inspired technologies exist or are already proposed or that I could envision to pollinate plants, faced with a precipitous drop in pollinator numbers. But, I am also turning an artist’s eye to larger implications. 1/n

*edit @Spaceways Suggested a Yellow-haired Sun Fly, Myathropa florea, the Batman hoverfly, and they have been identified in the region, and it really looks like one.
...

Some kind of drone fly I guess. Seems more yellow than most of the photos of the 'Common' one. It's on a chokecherry blossom.