Backyard Columbus

I’m closing the day out with a bang!
Podcast episode and blog post both hitting this week on a topic I’m passionate about:

ℍ𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕠 𝕄𝕒𝕜𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕄𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕐𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕊𝕦𝕓𝕦𝕣𝕓𝕒𝕟 𝕐𝕒𝕣𝕕: 𝔽𝕠𝕠𝕕, 𝔽𝕝𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕤, 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕝𝕚𝕗𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕁𝕠𝕪 🥳🤗💚

A suburban yard doesn’t have to be just grass, mulch, and a few shrubs.
Even a regular neighborhood yard can become a place that feeds your family, supports pollinators, welcomes wildlife, creates beauty, and gives you peaceful places to enjoy being outside ☀️

Link in bio where you can find my podcast and blog 🙌🏼
New podcast episode drops tomorrow morning, 6/17 5:00am 🥳

Squeaked out a new blog post 🥳 It's more complete info on yesterday's post. Check it out here:

www.backyardcolumbus.com

PLANT THIS, NOT THAT is on summer hiatus since it’s a CRUMMY time to plant (you definitely still can, but you need to baby the plants A LOT👎)

To explain why we did that series in the first place: to help increase habitat for our local pollinators 🦋🐝

Some of the native [Ohio] plants that we featured are important because of their host plant abilities.

Even if you just like to do vegetable gardening, you need pollinators to increase your yield (or even get any fruits, unless you enjoy hand pollinating all of your vegetable blossoms 🥴🤢)

🦋The entire family of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) require host plants
🦋No host plants = no butterflies or moths = 😭😭😭😭😭
🦋This is one more reason that we see fewer and fewer butterflies and moths in our neighborhoods: virtually no one is planting their host plants, but it’s so easy! 🥳🥳🥳

👉Pick your fave butterfly or moth
👉Provide some good nectar sources to ensure they come to your “restaurant“
👉Plant their required host plant to make sure they lay their eggs in your yard! 🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🦋🦋🦋

A few easy ones:
Monarchs 👉milkw**d
Black Swallowtails 👉 dill, fennel, parsley
Skippers👉 native grasses (NOT turf grass), sedges and legumes
Zebra Swallowtails 👉 Paw Paw trees!! 🦓
Great Spangled Fritillary 👉 native violets 💜💜💜

It’s a looong list, but a quick Google search 😉 It’s one of the easiest ways you can help butterfly populations- FR 🙃🦋✨🦋✨🦋✨

The entire yard: gardens, habitats, paths, hiding places and nature spaces, are done and ready to bloom 🌼✨✨✨

We live in on 9,234 sq ft, in the middle of busy cross streets.

We started with 5 oak trees (you could do way worse, oak trees support A LOT of life!) and over the course of about 15 years, our yard has become something I didn’t even know I wanted 🤗🥰🥰🥰🥰🦋🐝

I’ve learned so much and continue to learn something new almost every day (but since it’s Ohio, winter doesn’t count😂😂😂).

I hope you can get some ideas from some of the areas I’ve shared here. Instagram limits you to 20 pics 🤣- I did have more 🫣🥴😂🫢

How about you? 🤷🏼‍♀️

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Welcome to another edition of
ℙ𝕃𝔸ℕ𝕋 𝕋ℍ𝕀𝕊, ℕ𝕆𝕋 𝕋ℍ𝔸𝕋

To recap the goal of this series:
Some of the “not that“ plants are totally fine to plant alongside the native suggestions, and other “not that“ plants are invasive & really should be avoided.
😉We’re talking about the best choices for pollinator plants in this series, not medicinal, sentimental or edible plants 🙃😁
Here we go🦋🐝🐝🐝

🐝Native Black-eyed Susan vs Black-eyed Susan vine: Name confusion! The vine is pretty, but it’s a tropical annual, not the native Rudbeckia pollinator powerhouse 🦋 Black-eyed Susans are also highly valuable larval host plants for the caterpillars of several butterfly and moth species, as well as numerous specialist native bees.

🐝 Butterfly w**d vs Butterfly bush: Holy 💩, don’t freak out 😂 butterfly bush gives nectar, but butterfly w**d is a native milkw**d and a monarch butterfly host plant. Much better backyard habitat value. The issue also is the butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) is widely considered an invasive plant in Ohio. It spreads rapidly through wind-blown seeds, aggressively outcompeting native vegetation in natural areas and disturbed sites. Additionally, it acts only as a nectar source and is not a host plant for native butterfly caterpillars.
An idea 💡: if you REALLY must have a butterfly bush, cutting the dead flowers off before they go to seed would prevent the unwanted seed dispersal of this plant 🙏

🐝Cardinal flower vs geraniums: instead of defaulting to a pot of red annuals for color, try a native red flower that hummingbirds truly love!
Don’t panic, flower people: this doesn’t mean you have to break up with geraniums. Put cardinal flower and red geraniums together in a container and let them throw a full-blown red hummingbird party 🥳❤️