Wild Pollinator

09/24/2024

LATE SUMMER BLOOMS - feeding the pollinators from late summer to fall is crucial! 🦋🐝
Pictured: seaside fleabane, yarrow, fireweed, spirea, coyotebush, rattlesnake plantain, coast buckwheat, blanketflower, pearly everlasting ++++ my signature “Car Bouquet” to keep me happy on the long drives from Portland to Bandon and back. I’m working on gardens from the big city to my beloved tiny town. Grateful for everyone who has supported me in both these places!

06/28/2024

Nighttime portraits of Showy Milkweed or Asclepias speciosa ✨ perennial wildflower native to the Willamette Valley ecoregion. Two winters ago I started this milkweed from seed and in it’s second summer it is bursting with these beautiful peculiar flowers. It is unwieldy and sculptural and the host plant for endangered Monarch butterflies, essential for completing their life cycle. Along with Monarchs, this flower brings all the butterflies to your yard! Native milkweed deserves as many patches of land as we can give it. Find a sunny spot, where soil can drain excess water, and let’s plant some milkweed this fall in your garden 🦋

04/23/2024

Incredible blooms at Camassia natural area, a tiny patch of Oak savanna habitat remaining. Camas, seablush, saxifrage, oak, blue eyed mary, and many more. I’m still learning to distinguish the exact species that I saw yesterday but getting to see the peak camas bloom was so inspiring. I hope to support oak savanna restoration efforts and continue to plant these keystone species whenever possible! Imagine our backyards could be growing towards this level of beauty and habitat…!

04/22/2024

Spring is full of exciting new sprouts and breathtaking blossoms. I try and keep notes about when a new species bursts into bloom. In the spring it feels like everything moves in fast motion!

01/28/2024

Great article about deer, always good to keep in mind how loss of habitat affects the behavior of wildlife and how that in turn affects our gardens!

Are you living in a neighborhood or rural space where deer are common visitors? That is the human perspective of seeing the deer in and around your abode, deer as visitors. Looking through the deer eyes, we all can see that someone has placed a home of humans on the well-traveled route of these wand...

01/24/2024

january - just after midwinter 🌑
my backyard garden in the ice storm 🕯️
and today, after everything has thawed out 🌞

In many agricultural (agrarian) traditions the winter solstice is considered “midwinter” rather than the beginning of winter. The darkest days of the year, sometimes the coldest as well. for me as a gardener, winter solstice is the beginning of the year. every day after gets a little lighter, more work, more plans, the promise of flowers growing closer every day. this month there has been ice and snow and dangerously cold conditions. and there is the guaranteed promise of more light ahead. everything seems hopeless and bleak sometimes and everything is always changing. plants set good examples for how to weather the storm.

01/20/2024

Creating habitat in your yard is not just a hobby, it actually really can make a difference for insects to have a space to live and eat and carry out their life cycles. Every year I learn to see the pollinators more and more in my garden and get to know them like friends. By learning to love native flowers and planting for habitat, we get the opportunity to support pollinator species who are crucial to our ecosystem.

The California pipevine swallowtail butterfly was becoming increasingly rare. This biologist singlehandedly saved it.