In this episode, Aaron Anderson, a Ph.D. student in the OSU Department of Horticulture, talks about his research on gardening with native plants. Under the direction of Dr. Gail Langellotto, Aaron is researching native plants that support ecosystem services; that gardeners find attractive, and that they would want.
Currently, Aaron is running a large field trial at OSU’s North Willamette Research Center studying 23 native Willamette Valley wildflower species. Aaron monitors the floral bloom, performs timed pollinator observations, and samples the insect community on each plot. Additionally, he is currently asking gardeners to rank the aesthetics of these flowers via an online survey. From this research, Aaron plans on developing pollinator-friendly planting lists of PNW native wildflowers that are also attractive to home gardeners.
Listen in to learn what native plants are best for your garden, both for increasing the health of local pollinators and adding beauty to your garden.
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“There have been very few studies that have been done on the relative attractiveness of different plants to pollinators, especially in a garden-type setting.” – Aaron Anderson
Show Notes:
- What makes a study like Aaron’s necessary, even with the abundance of free information online
- Why there is no “superplant” for pollinator gardens
- Why Aaron chose to study native plants in garden spaces for increasing the health of pollinators
- How Aaron crafted his study, and what steered his decisions
- Why the results of two similar studies on the most attractive plants to pollinators came out so different
- Why native plants are so crucial in attracting honeybees
- Which plants were found to be the top five for attracting pollinators to your garden
- How Aaron sees less aesthetically desirable plants adding to the beauty of your garden
- How the market is shifting from purely aesthetic decisions for gardens towards more functional ideas
- What’s next for Aaron and his research
- How you can tell a honeybee apart from other bees
“The nice thing about a lot of these annuals is that if you don’t like how they like after or right before they go to seed, you can really easily just pull them out.” – Aaron Anderson
Links Mentioned:
- Find out more about the OSU Garden Ecology Lab (with lots of the graphs that Aaron talks about)
- Listmania: the strengths and weaknesses of lists of garden plants to help pollinators. (Garbuzov, Mihail, and Francis LW Ratnieks BioScience 64.11 (2014): 1019-1026.)
- Aaron’s favorite pollinator resources:
- Check out the past episode with flagship farm Iwasaki Bros, 84 Kathleen Baughman – Nurseries and Pollinators
You mention a survey rating attractiveness to gardeners of bee-friendly plants, but I can’t see a link to it.