
Pollinator-Friendly Native Plant Lists - Amorymeltzer
https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/pollinator-friendly-plant-lists
======
SamWhited
This is a great resource if you're in the U.S., thank you! Be sure to look up
your local native plant societies if you need more help, they're a great
resource and can often find you cheap seeds or young plants. In Georgia we
have the Georgia Native Plant Society ([https://gnps.org/](https://gnps.org/))
and in Texas the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center can help you
([https://www.wildflower.org/](https://www.wildflower.org/)). Find and support
your local native plant people!

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gumby
I had native plants in the gardens of my house I listed for sale (before
things ground to a halt, alas). The real estate agents wanted then all
replaced by "more attractive" plants that need more water. Sigh.

~~~
Zenst
You don't have to follow their `advice`, and most who want such plants would
plant the ones they want anyhow and those who like native plants would be a
plus point sales wise. So you may find the effort and expense would not yield
much of a return and may be detrimental profit wise.

Saying that as I'm not aware of anybody who was put off a house sale as they
didn't like the plants, though aware of many who would landscape/redo the
garden to their taste irrespective of what's there and the only thing that may
have merit would be a tree or bushes that would factor in some buyers, not the
plants. Unless of course it's something like knotweed.

Did you consult with other agents?

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gumby
Yes interviewed several. The thing about the Californian plants is that they
are very low water users, but as a result the plants look patchy and so, to
those with a European or Asian conception of what "plants" should look like,
can appear a bit bedraggled. It's all about people imagining themselves in the
house.

~~~
anonAndOn
FWIW, adding some hardscaping (rocks, boulders, cement pavers) and vertical
changes (dry creek, small hills with dirt from the dry creek) made my
xeriscape look 100x more interesting. There's a sweat equity cost and
hardscaping can get expensive quickly, but your payoff is likely a big
increase in curb appeal.

~~~
contingencies
_xeriscape_ ... great word! In Australia local government in some areas are
pushing 'rain gardens' and 'swales'. Some even pay out lump sum subsidies, to
reduce sudden stormwater runoff.

~~~
anonAndOn
Australia has some incredible shrubs and trees that are wonderful additions to
a xeriscape. I've got a yard with mostly native southwest US plants & cacti
but I sprinkled in a couple exotics from down under.

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pvaldes
Very pleasant to see, elegant and informative

Extra point for writing Symphyotrichum instead Aster. This means that there is
a serious taxonomic work in the background (and they cared to update the
scientific names and include the modern changes based in DNA studies).

The title could benefit of an "in North America"

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willvarfar
Gorgeous PDFs! Very informative and easy to read too.

I wish there was a similar thing for my country far away. If there is, I'm
missing it. Most books about 'native' plants are about wild flowers, and most
books about garden plants don't say what is native and are full of types which
clearly aren't.

And yeah, I've planted a lot of buddleia, which I've since learned is an
invasive species where I am.

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contingencies
If you are in to plants, I can strongly recommend installing the
[http://inaturalist.org/](http://inaturalist.org/) app. Great community any ML
based identifications, providing open citizen science data to researchers and
objective collated data such as range, seasonality, etc. per species.

Australia: Shots of ants pollinating a native tea tree I took recently:
[https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40225415](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40225415)
\+ somewhat dated but broad scientific review of Australian pollinators:
[https://moscow.sci-
hub.tw/3455/c6d90a9c9485aa772e97f4c6932cc...](https://moscow.sci-
hub.tw/3455/c6d90a9c9485aa772e97f4c6932cc084/armstrong1979.pdf) \+ upcoming
April 12-19 wild pollinator count event
[https://wildpollinatorcount.com/](https://wildpollinatorcount.com/)

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3fe9a03ccd14ca5
I've had a lot of fun this year keeping mason bees (native bees). They're
solitary and extremely docile (I've messed with their comb homes a lot and
they've never minded). They're also extremely good pollinators, much better
than honey bees.

After an unsuccessful attempt to use a mason bee hive from Costco, I ripped it
out and inserted 3D printed equivalents, which they seem to be more interested
in. It's also fun that I get to disassemble the nest and double my brood for
next year.

As for the garden, it's hard to determine causation, but I've noticed a much
better yield on my stone fruits.

I highly recommend mason bees in your garden next year. They're easy, low
maintenance, and kids can get into keeping them.

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carapace
Not to be "that guy" but I have to point out that, while this is great, the
primary threat to pollinators is our modern mass agriculture.

~~~
goda90
Replacing monoculture, pesticide ridden lawns with more natural
coverings(especially in places where no one is even using the lawn for
recreation) is a good first step. Then at least the cities and suburbs can be
a haven. It also gets people thinking about this kind of stuff and can lead to
pressure for more sustainable agriculture.

~~~
carapace
Oh absolutely! Have you heard of "Integral Urban House"?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Urban_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Urban_House)

~~~
lostlogin
This sounds like it’s related to permaculture.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture)

~~~
carapace
This particular thing was (I think) a parallel evolution.

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memco
Very cool! The numbering in the bloom periods for California [0] is missing
17-20: it goes "16, 21, 22, 23 … 24". The pictures look to be numbered
correctly though.

[0]:
[https://xerces.org/sites/default/files/2018-05/17-045_02_Xer...](https://xerces.org/sites/default/files/2018-05/17-045_02_XercesSoc_Pollinator-
Plants_California_web-3page.pdf)

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sixstringtheory
Here's another resource from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which
includes a couple places not found in the linked site:
[https://www.fws.gov/pollinators/](https://www.fws.gov/pollinators/)

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rhn_mk1
Only talks about North America.

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herodotus
There are links to sites for several other countries

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athenot
This is well put together. The PDF has a single page ordered by bloom time
within the season. For each plant, it lists the water requirements and rough
height: this quickly lets me know whether a plant will fit in a particular
location in my yard. Otherwise I go looking for plants, find what seems to be
nice then after digging up the details find out it doesn't match the location.

These PDFs are sorted by US region but for those outside the US, this may
still be useful if your local climate happens to be close to one of the 10
listed here.

~~~
0xddd
> These PDFs are sorted by US region but for those outside the US, this may
> still be useful if your local climate happens to be close to one of the 10
> listed here.

Possibly, but seems like it would still be best to determine what's native for
your region, not just plant something because it can survive.

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esemor
Looking for similar resources for Europe in general and Scandinavia in
particular. Anyone know of something similar?

~~~
pvaldes
Salix can be a start. You have several dwarf or small species. Salix lanata
for example.

Rhododendron tomentosum also

Describe your location. What kind of garden do you want to create?

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keithly
There are some links for other countries under "Additional Resources" at the
bottom of the page.

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ageofwant
Most countries have online flora's and at lasses like
[https://www.ala.org.au/](https://www.ala.org.au/) (Atlas of live Australia).
What is often missing is nice presentations and use case specific applications
like this.

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adrr
Does North America have that many pollinator insects in terms of population?
We have some butterflies and some solitary bees. We don't have the honey bee.
What would normally be pollinating these plants, all I see is honey bees and
some butterflies.

~~~
ozborn
I'm not sure about number of pollinator insects in terms of population, but in
the southeast for example, the southeastern blueberry bee
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habropoda_laboriosa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habropoda_laboriosa))
pollinates blueberries through buzz pollination. I believe even commercial
blueberry operations rely on this pollinator, as blueberries are native to
North America and those bees are its primary pollinators.

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ourmandave
Hope they include milkweed on the lists for endangered Monarchs.

[https://monarchbutterflygarden.net/how-to-start-monarch-
butt...](https://monarchbutterflygarden.net/how-to-start-monarch-butterfly-
garden/)

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Zenst
Anything that flowers produces pollen right - so hmm.

However, I always like to have a patch of wild flowers (localy sourced
previous year for seed) in along with chives and lavander. Look nice and just
before the lockdown I went out and sowed some in a few spots along with some
sunflowers.

Logic being that they will bloom around the time everybody really down from
the lockdown and help chirp up people, also good for nature and birds love
sunflower seed. Which is one thing I feed them regularly with my window feeder
and been a joy over the past few weeks and months ahead.

You can make a window bird feeder with some perspex or even cut and glue up
some milk containers - few suction cups and tada, simple and effective little
bird feeder and they do use them and who needs 4k/8k.. when you have real life
out a window comming to you. Highly recommended.

~~~
patall
> Anything that flowers produces pollen right - so hmm.

Technically, that may be right but is beyond the point. Very often, for alien
species the local pollinators will not recognize the plant as such and thus
ignore it. A prime example for this is Forsythia that a lot of people in my
area plant because its one of the first flowering trees in the year. However,
from an ecological standpoint it is worthless and for some insects even
suspected to be toxic.

Another problem are breeds where the blossom is filled with extra petals.
While this may look nice to us, it makes the pollen and nectar inaccessible to
many insects. As they are still drawn to the flower but cannot reach it, its
also net negative for those critters.

~~~
Zenst
Fascinating, I did not know that, do now - thank you.

I use local wildflower seed harvested from walks the previous year, though
mostly from previous years sowings now as got some momentum going.

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wlll
It really bugs me when people put stuff on the Internet like this, an
International network of often English speaking people many of whom don't live
in the USA. It happens all the time. "Series X to be releaesd next month",
"Hardware y to be releaesd on Monday", as if they have suddenly forgotten that
there's an _entire rest of the world_ who may be reading this.

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TeMPOraL
It gets worse - "X to be released this fall". When exactly?

~~~
lostlogin
Are there many places outside the US that use ‘fall’ over ‘autumn’?

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wil421
They have California, Florida, and the rest are just regional pamphlets.

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goda90
California is big enough and isolated enough by mountains to be considered a
distinct region. Florida is different enough to be considered distinct from
the rest of the south. Nature doesn't care about state borders. Regional
pamphlets make sense.

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kidkong
Pollinator-Friendly Native Plant Lists _in the USA_ , there FTFY.

