Easiest: "No Mow May". Delay any lawn cutting as long as you can in the spring. This enables early pollinators to have a supply of pollen.

Also easy: Stop using sprays in your yard for ticks and mosquitos. These are not the best way to protect yourself and your family. Pesticide sprays will kill many beneficial insects, no matter what the promotional materials say. You can protect yourself better by using socks and clothes sprayed with permethrin or using an insect repellent on your skin (one that contains picaridin is particularly effective.)

Plant a pollinator garden using native species. It is particularly important to leave mature trees in our yards and keep intact forests in conservation areas in town. They are a critical ally in the fight to reduce the threat of rising CO2 and warming temperatures. New research shows how the old trees in our yards and conservation areas can really make a difference.

Amy Meltzer of Mass Pollinator Network encourages us to take the following steps to improve the biodiversity of our yards.

• Identify and remove invasive plants - and fill any voids with native plants.
• Avoid herbicide, pesticide and chemical fertilizer use.
• Plant a minimum of 70% biomass of native plants, trees and shrubs.
• Plant in layers (low, medium and tall plants) and plant densely.
• Choose plants to suit your site conditions.
• Plant flowering plants in groups of 3-5 to make foraging easy for pollinators.
• Shrink your lawn to what you use for recreation and walking paths.
• Allow flowering plants in the lawn you keep.
• Mow every 2-3 weeks, allow lawn to get 3-5” high, leave the clippings.
• Plan for a variety of native flowers in bloom from spring through fall. 
• Prioritize plants that support endangered insets
• Provide a clean water source for both birds and insects—add small stones to a shallow dish filled with water.
• Skip fall cleanup to protect overwintering insects. Leave plant stems and fallen leaves. (Nature provides safer shelter than commercial “bee hotels!”).
• Delay spring cleanup and don't take much away (clear a few leaves to help young seedlings) until at least 10 consecutive days of above 50 degree temperatures at night, to allow young insects to emerge. Cut plant stems to 12-15 inches.
• Minimize lighting at night: use warm spectrum bulbs (color leans towards yellow, not blue); keep lights off or change to motion sensors.
• Encourage your neighbors to plant natives! 

Creating landscapes to support the pollinators, birds, predators, and other organisms that run the ecosystems we depend on can be accomplished, even in the smallest space. There are simple changes we must make in our landscapes and our attitudes to keep insects on the ground, in the air, and yes, on our plants. 

Sustainable Stow and Randall Library hosted Doug Tallamy who talked about the challenges and actions we can take in our own backyards. The recording is now available from Stow TV on You Tube.  Doug Tallamy is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware For more, see the resources listed below.

Steps to take

Convert part of your lawn to a pollinator meadow. Most wildflowers thrive in a sunny habitat so choose your site carefully. The Massachusetts Audubon Society provides some useful advice on how to create a pollinator meadow successfully and beautify your landscape, while supporting birds, bees, butterflies, and beneficial invertebrates.

Create a beautiful border next to your house and/or around the base of a tree with perennials and native shrubs. It is important not to mow too close to the base of a tree because many moths and other insects overwinter in the soil at the base of a tree. Remember that those insects are essential for wildlife including birds, all of which need caterpillars to feed their young even if the adult birds are seed eaters. So planting low growing native shrubs and perennials provides beauty as well as function. 

Plant a tree. If you have space, oak trees are the best ones for supporting wildlife as they are host to hundreds of different insect species, which in turn supply food for birds. If you only have a small area, a good choice might be an Amelanchier, also known as serviceberry or shadbush, which has flowers in the spring and berries that birds adore, or a native dogwood. Non-native trees, such as a Japanese maple or a gingko, don’t provide much support for wildlife.

Leave the leaves. It has become typical practice to rake up the leaves from the lawn each fall and send them somewhere else. But doing so prevents the nutrients from enriching the soil and removes over-wintering locations for insects. Instead, remove leaves from your lawn and driveway but leave them in mulched areas. Shredded leaves make great mulch that is better for the soil than bark mulch and, if you shred them yourself, you will save money. Also, shredded leaves will not smother plants as can happen with a thick layer of entire leaves. 

Invasive Plant Management. One of the most pressing issues our landscapes and ecosystems face is the ever-expanding growth of invasive plants. Invasive plants form mono cultures in our ecosystems, choking out and threatening the diversity of our native plant life. As a result this has a detrimental impact on the biodiversity of life our landscapes can support. 

Rain Gardens. Water that simply runs off your hardscape is wasted water. Rain gardens are areas that collect and store runoff where it can sink into the ground. They play an important role in our landscapes, helping to store and clean nature’s most precious resource.

Deep Dive Resources

There are many excellent sources of information where you can learn about sustainable landscaping and what you can do in your backyard, no matter what its size.

1. Ecological Landscape Alliance (ELA) provides webinars, garden tours, and other events
2. Grow Native Massachusetts is a great resource, offering expert speakers, an annual native plant sale, and workshops. A video of recent talk by Douglas Tallamy,  Nature’s Best Hope, describes the importance of providing for wildlife in our landscapes and is highly recommended.
3. Native Plant Trust  offers classes, workshops, and online information on ecological gardening. They offer advice on choosing plants that are most likely to thrive in your particular situation. They also sell native plants at the Garden in the Woods in Framingham
4. Xerces Society  for Invertebrate Conservation is an international nonprofit organization that protects the natural world through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats. Their focus is on protecting pollinators, conserving endangered species, and reducing pesticide and fertilizer use.

Watch selected talks on Stow TV/You Tube on native gardening.  See:

Gardening with Intent—What you plant makes a difference, with Jean Devine.

Gardening with Native Plants Part 1: Why and How, Providing habit for pollinators, birds, and other essential wildlife, with Amy Meltzer.

Gardening with Native Plants Part 2: Pollinator Pathways: A Local Solution to Biodiversity Loss, with Peggy MacLeod.

Restoring the Little Things that Run the World with Doug Tallamy