This presentation is for anyone who wants to create gardens or wildflower meadows to enhance pollinator habitat and provide season-long floral resources for bees. Cathy will discuss seed mixes and plant selection, site preparation, planting, and maintenance requirements. Learn to “think like a bee” while adding beauty and diversity to your landscape. The first three years require effort and patience, but you will be rewarded as your meadow matures into a self-sustaining system. The results of bee monitoring studies to determine which perennial species (and, in some cases, cultivars) are most visited by bees may surprise you.
About the Presenter:
Cathy Neal works with the landscape and nursery industry to develop and conduct educational programs that enhance the environment and provide ecosystem services. Pollinator habitat, biodiversity and water quality protection are areas of current emphasis in outreach programs and in teaching Sustainable Landscape Design and Management. Investigating best techniques for establishing meadow gardens using native grasses and wildflowers—this project aims to help property owners/landscapers turn excess lawn areas or weedy areas into low-maintenance meadows that provide habitat for birds and pollinators and provide storm water infiltration areas with minimal inputs. She is a founding member of the Northern New England Pollinator Habitat Working Group. Her expertise is in the selection, planting and establishment practices for landscapes using native grasses and wildflowers for creating sustainable pollinator habitats.
Presentation can be found here:
http://www.northeastipm.org/ipm-in-action/the-ipm-toolbox/planting-wildflowers-for-pollinator-habitat-webinar-recording/
