Bee a good neighbour: Creating a thriving backyard for bees, butterflies, and birds
Attend this free webinar with entomologist Dr. Jess Vickruck and wildlife gardener Pierre Janin
pollinators
Species Spotlight: Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)
In the spring, when you start to think about what to plant in your garden, perhaps start to think about incorporating native plants. Aquilegia canadensis, more commonly known as the red columbine, is a flowering plant native to New Brunswick. Besides being a native plant, it has a variety of features that make it a great addition to your garden.
Iris versicolor: the Blue Flag
The Iris versicolor, commonly known as the Blue Flag Iris, is a native plant found in New Brunswick and other provinces from Manitoba to the eastern Canada.
Should Flower Gardens be Rich, Even, or Diverse? : Things to Think About When Planting Your Own Garden
This guest blog is part of a series of articles written by Mount Allison students, as part of a partnership between Nature NB and the Applied Native Plants and Pollinator Conservation course. Thanks to Dr. Emily Austen and the students for this ongoing collaboration!
Why grow Pearly Everlasting?
Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea) is an excellent addition to any home garden. These attractive, low-maintenance plants encourage pollinators to visit your home, benefitting both your garden as a whole and the larger ecosystem.
Blue Vervain, a Wild Wildflower
Native wildflowers are our environment’s naturally occurring flowering plants. These plants evolved and grew alongside other plants and animals, such as pollinators, perfecting a fragile balance with each other that helped the ecosystem run properly. Verbena hastata, or Blue Vervain, is one such native wildflower. You may be familiar with these spires topped by purple flowers from driving past them in roadside ditches or from evening walks in wetlands and meadows. Blue Vervain plays an important role in our ecosystem as a popular stop for pollinators like bees, and as a stopgap for methane emissions in wetlands.
Species Spotlight: Andrena, the Mining Bees
If you’ve ever spent time exploring the first wildflowers to bloom around your home in the early-Spring, you’ve probably seen some wild bees that look similar to bumblebees. But, these bees are much too slender, and typically much too small to be bumblebees. These bees were likely mining bees.
A Pollinator Garden and a Great Partnership with Mount Allison University
This past fall, our team was fortunate to kick off an exciting partnership with Dr. Emily Austen, Assistant Professor with Mount Allison University Biology Department and Experiential Learning & Career Development office. It all started last spring when we approached Dr. Austen to help us out with some of our native plant seed work. As many of our readers know, when we get excited about things, new projects quickly take form. For this edition of NB Fieldnotes, our Program Director Adam Cheeseman asked our partners to come up with a series of questions reflecting on their experiences.