Boston Flora

Tag: Pollinators of Native Plants

  • Sundays, November 15 & 22, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm – Rooted in Place Online: Annual Ecological Gardening Symposium

    Offered online for the first time, Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 5th Annual Rooted in Place Ecological Gardening Symposium invites you to create a new, environmentally sensitive vision by exploring the connection between the surrounding landscape and your home.

    The symposium features four informative lectures over the course of two days, November 15th and November 22nd, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. with sessions offered live through Zoom followed by question and answer periods. Registration deadline is 9 a.m. on November 15. Recordings of the lectures can be accessed until January 1, 2021. 

    Our expert presenters will examine the intersection of the wild and cultivated landscape while exploring ecosystem services offered by native plantings, including the role they play in our gardens.

    Become inspired to plant gardens designed to support diverse and resilient ecological communities in the face of a changing world. Online registration for this program is temporarily unavailable. Please call 413 354-8410 to register. 

    Conference presenters include Heather Holm, Ulrich Lorimer, and Dr. Desiree Narango.

    Heather Holm is an award-winning author and nationally sought-after speaker, spending much of her time passionately educating audiences about the fascinating world of native bees and the native plants that support them. Her first book, Pollinators of Native Plants, was published in 2014, and her latest book, Bees, published in 2017, has won six book awards including the 2018 American Horticultural Society Book Award. Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native bees and native plants and the natural history and biology of native bees occurring in the Upper Midwest and Northeast. Heather’s presentation, What’s the Buzz About Native Bees explores the nesting habitat, life cycle, pollen collection, brood rearing, and general characteristics of common genera of native bees occurring in the Midwestern, Eastern United States, and southern Canada. The pollination of native plants and the mutualism between native plants and native bees will be highlighted, in addition to the presentation of floral resources and how the physical characteristics of bees can influence their effectiveness as pollinators.

    Ulrich Lorimer is Director of Horticulture at Native Plant Trust. A longtime advocate for native plants in designed landscapes, Uli firmly believes that ecological gardening can help heal our planet and bolster biodiversity in all its forms. His work as a native plant and biodiversity advocate is informed by years of work in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Native Flora Garden, in the woodland garden at Wave Hill in the Bronx and even earlier at the US Botanic Garden. Uli’s presentation, What I have Learned from Observing Plants in Nature, engages gardeners and horticulturists to turn outdoor hikes into inspiring, learning experiences — an approach which fosters inspiration, reinforces the ecoregion concept, shows how ecosystems and their components function, and emphasizes how plant communities are connected with all other forms of life, humans included. This talk will explore how observations made from nature can help expand our plant choices, inform design decisions, and result in gardens that support biodiversity, aesthetics and ecosystem function. 

    Dr. Desiree Narango is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and current David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow. Her research interests include ecology and conservation in human-dominated landscapes, plant-animal interactions and community-driven science. Desiree has a PhD in Entomology and Wildlife Ecology from University of Delaware, an MS in Natural Resources from The Ohio State University, a BS in Environmental Biology from SUNY: ESF and nearly 15 years experience studying wildlife. She’s also an active birder and gardener who enjoys getting others excited about the natural world in their own yards. Dr. Narango’s presentation, Native Plants in Gardening Practices, addresses her research on how native plants and gardening practices influence birds, bees, butterflies and moths in residential yards, addressing the specialized relationships between native plants and insects, why insects matter to birds, and steps you can take to improve habitat for wildlife at home. She will also share resources to find more information about native plants, nature-friendly gardening and participating in community-driven science. 

    There will also be a panel discussion with Bridghe McCracken, Drew Monthie, and Rebekah Lamphere. Full details may be found at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/rooted-place-online-annual-ecological-gardening-symposium

  • Wednesday, September 23, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Native Bees: Our Pollination Powerhouses

    Grow Native Massachusetts is proud to present our 2020 Evenings with Experts lecture series. These talks at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, are free and open to all.

    Join us for this September 23 talk beginning at 7 pm with Heather Holm, the author of Bees: An Identification and Native Plant Forage Guide. This program was originally scheduled for May but had to be rescheduled due to Covid-19.

    Native bees are the most important and effective pollinators for our flowering plants. Although they play a crucial role in sustaining biodiversity, they are poorly understood and under threat from human activity.

    Heather Holm will teach us how to recognize common bee genera, and enlighten us about their fascinating life cycles, nesting habitat, and foraging needs. Come learn more about the mutualistic relationships that they have with native plants – a powerful reminder that the salvation of one is inextricably linked to the proper stewardship of the other.

    Heather Holm is an expert on pollinators whose first book, Pollinators of Native Plants, brought her national attention. She is a sought-after speaker who is passionate about educating audiences. Her recent book, Bees: An Identification and Native Plant Forage Guide, won the 2018 American Horticultural Society Book Award.

    Thank you to our community partners, the Cambridge Public Library, Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, for their support of this series.

  • Wednesday, July 1, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – Specialist Bees Webinar

    The monarch butterfly is probably the most famous insect specialist (the caterpillars only feed on milkweed), but did you know that many native bees are also specialists?

    Female native bee specialists or oligoleges, only collect pollen from a narrow range of native plants; this could mean just one plant genus or many genera that belong to one plant family. During this Walk in the Garden Ecological Landscape Alliance webinar on July 1 at noon, Heather Holm will highlight many of these native plant-bee specializations as well as the overlapping habitat requirements of the bees and plants.

    The presentation will also include the threats to specialist bees such as habitat loss and climate change. Heather Holm had an avid interest in natural history and botany at a young age and spent much of her childhood exploring the woodlands and prairie on the family property. She studied horticulture and biology at the University of Guelph and later web programming and digital design at Seneca college, Canada.

    Heather is an award-winning author and nationally sought-after speaker spending much of her time passionately educating audiences about the fascinating world of native bees and the native plants that support them. Her first book, Pollinators of Native Plants, was published in 2014, and her latest book, Bees, published in 2017, has won six book awards including the 2018 American Horticultural Society Book Award. Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native bees and native plants, and the natural history and biology of native bees occurring in the upper Midwest and Northeast.

    Heather currently lives in Minnesota with her husband. She is a self-employed author, designer, and publisher. For the past few years, she has been assisting with native bee research projects. In her spare time, Heather is an active community supporter, writing grants and coordinating neighborhood volunteer landscape restoration projects. Currently, she is working on three projects with volunteers, restoring approximately ten acres of city-owned land in her neighborhood for pollinators and people.

    Free but registration required at https://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/webinar-specialist-bees/