Thanks for sharing!

and we raised and released 85 Monarch's this summer! We raised them all, or almost all, from the tiniest eggs or itty bitty caterpillers. Thankfully, we only lost one to a virus. After that, our local Monarch garden outside of town helped us to ensure our butterflies were healthy before release (the virus had not spread).

We've got several people joining us next year!

What a wonderful contribution to our planet!

since doing landscaping in my backyard starting in 2016, I see lots of hummingbirds and bees around the flowering plants. Is that good enough?

every flower helps

I do know that I love sitting in my back yard and watching the hummingbirds. As well as the bees and other insects that I can't identify.

Thanks for helping out the pollinators.

But for about 5 months a year we have feet of snow...

Though I do plant wildflower in the late spring

I was weeding and saw one on a pink zinnia; looked up and saw two more! Three butterflies on one flower! That was the visual jackpot of the day.

A week later I was again working in the garden and saw a black swallowtail caterpillar.

I'm the director of some community and school gardens and I encourage our gardeners to intersperse flowers with their vegetable plantings.

gardeners who want to help our pollinator friends!

I’m lucky enough to have several old trees and an old arborvitae privacy hedge.

Back yard is “left native” with mowed trails. Milkweed (which the resident groundhog keeps eating ). Then I’ve got a few different native shrubs and plants, like Elderberry, Mulberry and Serviceberry. The Black Eyed Susans and Coneflowers didn’t do well though, for some reason.

used by all types of bees and smaller insects this year. (We don't spray for insects or use artificial fertilizers.) We have always had a "natural" yard; we are hosts to a population of skinks and lizards; American toads; preying mantises (saw babies this year!);bluebirds (nest had 4 babies this year, which we saw fledge); hummingbirds (although the population was down to two this year); and we've always had tons of earthworms.

I really want to ramp up the planting of more native plants, so I'm going to concentrate on that this year.