#native pollinators

[mossypidder]

BEES

This will be available as a print on my shop within the next couple weeks. Working on a full shop update.

Edit: PRINT AVAILABLE NOW

[julianplum]

🪻🌿 🐝 🌱 ✨ // campanula & green metallic sweat bees // gouache on hot press paper // part of my native pollinators series

Tiny sweat bees are underlooked native pollinators. These solitary little guys nest in the ground and pollinate an incredibly wide array of native wildflowers and food crops, including squashes, melons, blueberries, and cranberries. They also love the bright purple bells of wild campanula!

[jenfoundabug]

Northern paper wasp (Polistes fuscatus) Pennsylvania, US

[ouzel-time]

being fundamentally unafraid of insects and stuff is so great. like you can go up to someone like this and just

[oftwigandbone]

I have been struggling to make a decision on what to plant this year, and stumbled on these lovely seed packets! How beautiful is this artwork??

I love the packaging, each little box has the instructions for best conditions. The veggie box is all ancestral heirloom varieties that have been grown in Quebec for generations. Cukes, beans, lettuce, and tomatoes.

The second box is a mix and annual and perennial pollinator-happy indigenous flowers. These ones are all mixed together, and some won't come up until the following season, but I didn't grow any flowers last year so I'm excited to have some!

If you're in Quebec, you can find these at nutritionnisteurbain.ca and if you're in Montreal, they're available on Lufa!

[snekdood]

*casually posts this at the same time to further my agenda of growing native plants instead of grass and shitty ornamentals*

[bigpappahope]

[faguscarolinensis]

Xylocopa virginica on Tagetes lucida / Eastern Carpenter Bee on Mexican Marigold at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University in Durham, NC

[isle-na]

Wednesday, late night Moth sketching. Putting out some Hummingbird Clearwing dreams for tonight

[leafycollages]

milkweed

portfolio | insta

[eldritch-bf]

Easy Seed Bombing/Native Pollinator Planting!🐝🌼🦋

There are over 100,000 seeds per shaker! If you don’t want/can’t afford to buy the $45 three pack, you can buy the individual shakers for $15ish (links below). I bought the three pack and plan to give away two of the shakers as gifts and keep one for myself. They’re also compostable :)

One shaker can properly cover a roughly 300 sq ft area (an area 15x20ft, or three 10x10ft areas, or twelve 5x5ft areas, etc.)

I would order soon! Depending on your area your average last frost date might be coming up so the coming weeks/months would be the perfect time to sprinkle these seeds.

These are native wildflower seeds but it’s a U.S. company and what’s native in Maine might be considered a noxious weed in New Mexico, let alone on another continent, so I’ve included the list they provide here. Sadly they only use common names, but I would suspect unless you and 50 other people are buying their 25-lb bulk bags, there’s no real risk of anything potentially non-native becoming well-established enough to become a problem (for USers that is). They do have regional-specific mixes you can look for on their website.

Save The Monarchs:

Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias), Aster, Purple Coneflower, Rocket Larkspur, Indian Blanket, Lilliput Zinnia, Siberian Wallflower, Gayfeather, French Marigold, Sensation Cosmos, Bright Lights Cosmos, Mexican Sunflower, and Hoary Vervain.

Save The Bees:

Butterfly Milkweed, New England Aster, Wallflower, Coreopsis, Cosmos, Sweet Alyssum, Red Corn Poppy, California Orange Poppy, Purple Coneflower, Yellow Prairie Coneflower, Gaillardia, Lemon Queen, Gayfeather, Lupine, Bergamot, Primrose, Phacelia, Crimson Clover, and Baby Blue Eyes.

Hummingbirds & Butterflies:

Butterfly Milkweed, Chinese Forget Me Not, Columbine, Snapdragon, Aster, Cosmos, Larkspur, Foxglove, Bird's Eye, Praire Clover, Alyssum, Four O' Clock-Marvel, Lemon Mint, Maltese Cross, Jasmine, Poppy, Penstemon, Sage, Catchfly, Marigold, Nasturtium, Zinnia, & Treemallow.

You could keep one of the shakers in your bag/purse for if you see an opportunity arise. I recommend sprinkling seeds in random plots of dirt/weeds in urban/suburban areas that seem to be unmaintained or abandoned, rather than someone’s front lawn or a manicured public park, as owners/city workers will likely go through the effort of destroying them, probably with chemical weed killer, and the main point is to create little pollinator sanctuaries, not annoy neighbors/government workers.

That being said fuck golf courses.

So maybe sprinkle these seeds someplace you go to with some regularity, such as the bus stop, your favorite restaurant, or just along your walking/jogging route, so you can see their progress as they grow and maybe even give them some water sometime!

[the-cosmic-creature]

made a friend today!

[jenfoundabug]

Gorgeous creature <3

I planted a small patch of native wildflowers this summer, and it's amazing how many more species I'm seeing. This is a male Agapostemon texanus, a type of sweat bee. Females of this species are solid metallic green and don't have yellow and black stripes. They're quite beautiful but even more skittish than the males. Northern California, US

[ouzel-time]

A local BBB (Big Beautiful Bee) enjoying my swamp milkweed.

[neffiethimble]

today is a good day to bee

[rebeccathenaturalist]

It's Tell A Friend Friday!

Please enjoy this photo I took of a yellow-faced bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii) feeding on lupine (Lupinus spp.) flowers. Then tell someone you know about my work--you can reblog this post, or send it to someone you think may be interested in my natural history writing, classes, and tours. Here's where I can be found online:

Website - http://www.rebeccalexa.com

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