Category: Monarch Butterfly

Urban Pollinator Garden: Creating a Buzz in Small Spaces

Image Credit: Marcel Strauss for Unsplash

How Small Urban and Suburban Pollinator Gardens Can Make a Big Difference

For years, conversations about pollinator habitat have centered around large-scale habitat creation, with little focus on the benefits of smaller, urban and suburban pollinator gardens.  However, urban and suburban landscapes can also provide a crucial service for pollinator survival.

These smaller pollinator gardens create habitat corridors that bridge the gaps between larger areas of viable habitat and provide forage and protection for pollinators. For this reason, urban and suburban pollinator gardens are extremely effective in their role, whether city parks, rooftop gardens, small front/backyard gardens, or even just a few potted plants on a front stoop or balcony.

Site Prep

If you don’t already have a garden area established where you can add native pollinator plants, you’ll need to designate a space for your new pollinator garden. Removing or killing existing vegetation from your chosen location is crucial before planting your native plants. Doing this ensures invasives or other non-natives do not outcompete them. There are various ways to accomplish this task:

  • Option 1: Traditional use of an herbicide to kill off vegetation. If you choose this method, be sure to follow Best Management Practices for herbicide application. Check windspeed is less than 5 mph on the day you’re spraying to limit overspray. Additionally, precisely follow the labeled directions for the herbicide you’re using.
  • Option 2: Use a “Sheet Mulching” technique, which is herbicide-free and more environmentally friendly. Sheet Mulching uses cardboard to smother turf grass and weeds. Because cardboard is biodegradable, it adds carbon into the soil naturally as it breaks down. The best time to Sheet Mulch is Fall/Winter for a Spring planting, but you could also begin in Spring and plant later in the season.

5 Steps for Sheet Mulching

  1. Cut the weeds, turf, lawn as low as possible and leave any clippings in the area; if needed, remove any woody plant materials via shoveling.
  2. Soak the area you’ll be covering with water.
  3. Cover the soaked area with cardboard (remove any packing tape); overlap cardboard edges by 6-8″.
  4. Once cardboard is on the ground, dampen it.
  5. Add 4 to 6 inches of mulch; purchase mulch, or use grass/tree clippings and/or other compost materials.

Wait until Spring to plant your native nectar-rich plants to further ensure all competing vegetation has been eradicated.  Native plants are often best for pollinator gardens since they more adequately support native insects and pollinators.

As previously noted, pollinator habitat can be as simple as a few native, potted plants in a sunny area.  Even certain milkweed species can be potted and they too will flourish, such as Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa), Green (Spider) Milkweed (Asclepias viridis) and even Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). See the images below.

These plantings help restore the habitats of our native travel-weary pollinators, which in turn helps preserve nature and maintain vital food supplies. They also make an otherwise less-appealing cityscape look fabulous with lush foliage and colorful, vibrant blooms.

Check out the links below for a few Urban/Suburban Garden Design ideas.

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Donnamarie Duffin Headshot
Donnamarie Duffin
Donnamarie is a seasoned professional whose passion for conservation led her to embark on a career change from Director of Information Technology in the field of computer networking to Wildlife Biology. In her new career, she is a Coordinating Wildlife Biologist and has served as the Monarch and Pollinator Coordinator in Missouri for the past 5 years, including management of Missourians for Monarchs, a collaborative comprised of 48 partners from state, federal, NGO, academic, private, and agricultural sectors. Donnamarie provides oversight of the “Missouri Monarch and Pollinator Conservation Plan,” serves on both the North Core and South Core teams for the Mid-America Monarch Strategy, is a member of the Midwest Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (MAFWA), and is a member of Pheasants/Quail Forever’s Pollinator Habitat Working Group. Donnamarie holds 4 degrees, including a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Wildlife and Conservation Biology from the University of Rhode Island. In addition to her passion for monarchs and pollinators, Donnamarie is an enthusiastic birder and overall conservationist. Originally from the east coast, she presently lives in central Missouri with her ever-changing number of rescue animals, currently 2 dogs and 1 cat.