June is all about pollinators and how gardeners like you can help revive their declining populations. Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35% of the world’s food crops depend on pollinators to reproduce. 96% of North American land birds rely on butterfly and moth caterpillars to rear their young.
Pollinator Resources | Beautiful Blooming Perennial Videos | Glossary Words
Pollinator Resources
To celebrate all things pollinator, our website has a new section on Pollinators and Other Wildlife, where we have gathered all our resources on pollinators. In the drop down menu, you will find
- Pollinators and Other Wildlife – main page
- Best Bets: Native Plants to Attract Pollinators
- All blogposts categorized under Pollinators – includes articles, book reviews, and more!
- Lepidoptera: Butterflies and Moths – New 2022
- Virtual Classes
- YouTube Pollinator Videos by Extension Master Gardener Mary Free
Stay tuned for a special series of blogposts, All About Butterflies and Moths, beginning on June 20, for Pollinator Week 2022. That content will be added to our Lepidoptera section after Pollinator Week is over. There will be additional pollinator related resources in the month of June on our Facebook page, Instagram feed and Twitter.
Beautiful Native Plants
The Glencarlyn Library Community Garden coordinators have recently created a new series of short videos highlighting the beauty of native plants. We will be sharing these videos as well as additional resources on our website every month.
While most of the Glencarlyn videos have a science-based, instructional focus, the series on “Beautiful Native Plants” was created to simply celebrate the ornamental characteristics of many species that are either native to the Mid-Atlantic region or are environmentally friendly and grow well here. Based on a personal library of still photos and a few video clips, each presentation introduces viewers to around a dozen plants, providing scientific and common names and illustrating their full forms as well as details of buds, flowers, and foliage through the seasons. The videos are designed to be viewed with audio on to provide a background of music and the sounds of nature. You are invited to fall in love with beautiful native plants.
Spring-blooming Perennials
Featured Plants
- Arisaema triphyllum (Jack-in-the-Pulpit)
- Aquilegia canadensis (Wild Columbine)*
- Amsonia tabernaemontana (Eastern Bluestar)*
- Baptisia australis (Blue Wild Indigo)*
- Geranium maculatum (Wild Geranium)*
- Phlox divaricata (Woodland Phlox)*
- Penstemon digitalis (Beardtongue)
- Polemonium reptans (Jacob’s Ladder)*
- Polygonatum biflorum (Solomon’s Seal)*
- Tradescantia virginiana (Spiderwort)*
Summer-blooming Perennials
Featured Plants
- Agastache foeniculum (Anise Hyssop)
- Asclepias incarnata (Swamp Milkweed)*
- Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly-weed)*
- Coreopsis verticillata (Threadleaf Coreopsis)*
- Echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower)*
- Heliopsis helianthoides (Oxeye)*
- Hibiscus coccineus (Scarlet Rose-Mallow)*
- Liatris spicata (Gayfeather)*
- Lilium superbum (Turk’s-cap Lily)*
- Monarda didyma (Scarlet Beebalm)*
- Monarda fistulosa (Wild Bergamot)*
- Pycnanthemum muticum (Clustered Mountain-mint)*
*Tried & True Native Plant Selections for the Mid-Atlantic
Illustrated Glossary
- anther – [ AN-ther ] noun: part of the stamen that contains the pollen
- signal – [ SIG-nl ] noun: an area of contrasting color, usually yellow, on the fall of an iris in the place of a beard
- stamen – [ STEY-muhn ] noun, plural stamens, stamina: male reproductive organ of a seed plant, typically consisting of a stalk (filament) bearing a pollen producing anther at its tip; the angiosperm microsporophyll