From the Kansas City Star: Do Your Part For the Birds and Bees: GO NATIVE IN YOUR GARDEN THIS SPRING
The Kansas City Native Plant Initiative is working to get more residents — as well as business owners — to plant fewer imported plants and trees and more native plants such as asters, because they provide food for bees, birds and bugs.
The article explains:
- Native plants provide high-quality nourishment for birds, butterflies, bees
- More than 30 local wildlife organizations joined together to win a $230,000 National Wildlife Federation grant to help them educate the community on this issue
The article also offers Tips on how You Can Help:
- Reduce or eliminate applications of weed suppressants and just mow what grows (these chemicals are not only bad for pollinators — they’re bad for kids, pets and the watershed)
- Reduce the size of your lawn by enlarging existing plant beds or creating new plantings along the edges
- Begin transitioning your non-native ornamentals to native species
- Leave some dead leaves in planted areas as mulch (beneficial organisms live there over winter)
- Don’t kill wild violets — that’s what caterpillars eat to become fritillary butterflies
- Keep a few small piles of dead hollow stems as homes for native bees
- Grow a succession of native plants for each season: spring, summer, fall and winter
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