Using native plants to create pollinator habitat in southwest Oregon: lessons learned

Abstract

Worldwide pollinator decline has led to efforts in southwest Oregon to grow locally adapted native plants in pollinator gardens and landscape-scale pollinator habitat restoration projects. Pollinators depend on native plants for their life cycles. Native plants provide food for adults and larvae, and many pollinators are dependent on very specific plant genera, such as the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus Linnaeus [Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae]), which uses only milkweed (Asclepias L. [Asclepiadaceae]) as a larval host plant. Characteristics of desirable pollinator plants should be considered when creating pollinator habitat. Native plants support more biodiversity than do non-native plants or native plant cultivars. Selecting a palette of pollinator plants that bloom throughout the growing season ensures sufficient food for pollinators when they are active. Early-season and late-season blooming plants are especially important. A local guidebook, Native Pollinator Plants for Southern Oregon, was written to help gardeners and land managers in southern Oregon choose native pollinator plants. A National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant has funded the Southwest Oregon Monarch Habitat Restoration Initiative, which will enable planting more than 120 ha (300 ac) with native milkweed and other source-identified and locally adapted native plants to help create breeding habitat for the western monarch butterfly in southwestern Oregon. The 2-y project will occur on 6 project areas on public and private lands and will establish a minimum of 50 surviving milkweed plants per acre.