Co-written by Sarah @littlelovelywhatnots and Dan Barron A lighting bug rests under the flower of Anemone virginiana (Tall Thimbleweed). | Photo by Sarah Barron No matter your garden, or gardening experience, planting native species can be aesthetically pleasing while contributing to local biodiversity. To some, the “native” gardening journey may seem daunting. We’re writing to … Continue reading Getting Started with Native Plants
Category: Pollinators
When spring winds blow and the frost evaporates into sunlite the Pasque Flowers make a push the annual awakening for a most hopeful appearance despite the deserts adjacent and the tanks of chemicals property of the new paradigm when spring means less less than it did under a century before
Photos taken at Breidel Coulee, La Crosse County Wisconsin on August 27th, 20141. Monarch Butterfly on Eupatorium perfoliatum (Boneset)2. Spur Throated grasshopper (sp.?) on Helenium autumnale (Sneezeweed)3. Variegated Meadowhawk on Scirpus atrovirens (Dark-green Bulrush)4. Various insects on Asclepias incarnata (Rose Milkweed)
A Syrphid fly visits Pasque Flower on a windy spring afternoon. What can you do, in a seasonal desert, but search for perfection, means of living or dying, not by illness, or natural selection, but the economists algorithm.
Neonicotinoids (neo-nih-CAH-tin-oids) are systemic chemicals, which are absorbed into the plant's vascular system, leaving the entire plant toxic to both target and non-target insects. Systemic chemicals affect the central nervous system of insects, resulting in paralysis and death. This class of insecticides is particularly harmful to bees as accumulated neonicotinoids are consumed by adults or … Continue reading On Neonicotinoids
With only 1/100th of 1% remaining, tallgrass and shortgrass prairies are one of the rarest ecosystems on the planet. Once expansive mosaics of interconnected diversity, these biomes extended through most of our midwestern states. Today prairie remnants are small functionally extinct islands of great biodiversity, surrounded by seas of GMO monoculture, development and invasive species. … Continue reading On frac sand