Replacing lawns with native plant communities: the Native Bee Perspective

Please save the date for our next to last Plant Conservation Alliance general meeting of 2021 -- held remotely and open to all -- on Wednesday, September 8, 2021, from 2:00 - 4:00 pm ET. Join us in welcoming U.S. Geological Survey Wildlife Biologist, Sam Droege, who will discuss “Replacing lawns with native plant communities: the Native Bee Perspective."

***PLEASE RSVP TO ATTEND THIS MEETING – SEE BELOW***   

What will you learn?

Replacing lawn with native plants is common practice now.  Many of these plants attract pollinators.  Thus pollinator gardens of sorts are generated.  However, each flowering plant supports a different population of bee and wasp species.  So much so that there is often no overlap in the insect groups using those plants species even within the same season, same plot.  We break down those different plant communities in different ways and talk about creating plantings that offer more complete support rather than simply attracting pollinators.

About our Speaker: 

Sam Droege grew up in Hyattsville, received an undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland and a Master’s at the State University of New York – Syracuse. Most of his career has been spent at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. He has coordinated the North American Breeding Bird Survey Program, developed the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, the Bioblitz, Cricket Crawl, and FrogwatchUSA programs and worked on the design and evaluation of monitoring programs. Currently he is developing an inventory and monitoring program for native bees, online identification guides for North American bees at www.discoverlife.org, and with Jessica Zelt reviving the North American Bird Phenology Program.

***TO ATTEND THIS MEETING, PLEASE***   

RSVP by Friday, September 3, to: margaret_park@fws.gov. The meeting link will be shared with all who RSVP by Tuesday, September 7. 

This meeting will be hosted using Microsoft Teams. You will be able to join the meeting from the web or via the Microsoft Teams app. 

***Information about this and previous presentations is available on our PCA Meetings page.***