Loveland Garden Club

03/13/2026

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Scientists did the math on what would happen if just 10% of American lawns went native. The number they came back with should stop you cold — and then it should make you look at your own yard differently.
4 million acres.
That's how much pollinator habitat would be created immediately if one in ten American homeowners replaced some of their turfgrass with native plants. Not all lawns. Not half. Not even a quarter. Ten percent.
Sit with that for a second. The entire Everglades National Park covers roughly 1.5 million acres. Yellowstone is about 2.2 million. We are talking about a habitat restoration effort that would be larger than both of those combined — not built by the federal government, not funded by a billion-dollar conservation program, not requiring a single piece of legislation to pass. Just ordinary people making one different decision about what grows outside their front door.
Nobody has to coordinate this. Nobody needs to wait for a law. It starts the moment enough homeowners decide the lawn they've been mowing every weekend for years isn't the only option available to them.
The bee in this photo is working a coneflower growing at the edge of a suburban yard. That plant cost a few dollars at a local garden center. Once it's established, it doesn't need irrigation. It doesn't need fertilizer. It doesn't need weekly maintenance. And it supports the pollinators in that neighborhood in a way that every square foot of turfgrass surrounding it simply cannot. Grass is green. It is not food. It is not shelter. It is not habitat. It is a surface.
Native plants are the opposite of a surface. They're active participants in the ecosystem around your home. The insects that evolved alongside them know exactly what they are and what to do with them. Plant a patch of native wildflowers where grass used to be and within a single season you will see what was missing — because it will show up.
Here's the direct question this image is asking you: is some of your lawn in that 10%?
You don't have to tear up everything. A 10-foot patch where grass used to be is a real contribution. It feeds real bees. It supports real insects. It is genuinely, measurably better than what it replaced. Multiply that by millions of households and you have the largest conservation event in American history — achieved without a single vote being cast.
The math is already done. The opportunity is sitting right outside your front door. What happens next is entirely up to you.

02/27/2026

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If you have any of these six plants in your yard, they're probably spreading into your neighbors' woods right now. And every one has a native alternative that looks as good or better.

These aren't rare exotics. They're some of the most commonly sold plants at garden centers across America.

🔴 Bradford Pear ➜ 🟢 Serviceberry

Bradford is now banned in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. It cross-pollinates with wild pears, invades prairies and roadsides, and supports essentially zero native insects. Serviceberry blooms the same white flowers at the same time in spring, produces edible berries that birds and people both eat, and supports over 100 native insect species.

🔴 Japanese Barberry ➜ 🟢 Ninebark

Barberry creates dense humid cover at ground level that increases deer tick habitat — studies link it directly to higher Lyme disease rates in surrounding areas. Ninebark gives you the same dense hedge structure with deep burgundy foliage and supports over 50 moth and butterfly species.

🔴 Burning Bush ➜ 🟢 Virginia Sweetspire

That famous red fall color comes at a cost. Burning bush escapes into forests and displaces native understory plants. Virginia sweetspire turns an even deeper red-purple in autumn and produces fragrant white summer flowers that pollinators love.

🔴 Japanese Wisteria ➜ 🟢 American Wisteria

Japanese and Chinese wisteria girdle and kill mature trees with their weight. American wisteria produces the same gorgeous purple flower clusters but stays manageable, won't destroy your pergola, and won't strangle your oaks.

🔴 English Ivy ➜ 🟢 Creeping Phlox

English ivy smothers ground cover, weighs down trees, and blankets forest floors in monoculture where nothing else can grow. Creeping phlox gives you evergreen ground cover with pink-purple spring blooms and stays exactly where you plant it.

🔴 Japanese Honeysuckle ➜ 🟢 Trumpet Honeysuckle

Japanese honeysuckle smothers everything it reaches. Trumpet honeysuckle is a native vine with red-orange tubular flowers that hummingbirds compete over, and it won't take over your property line.

🌿 What to do:

- Check your state's invasive species list — some of these are already illegal to sell where you live
- If you're removing an invasive, plant the native swap in the same spot the same season — empty space gets recolonized fast
- Most of these native alternatives are the same price or cheaper at local native plant nurseries
- Spring is the best planting window for all six swaps

Six plants out. Six natives in. Same beauty, same structure, and your yard stops being a source and starts being a solution. 🌿

02/07/2026

Winter is the hardest time for birds (and most other wildlife) to find food. Putting out a bird feeder in the winter will save lives of many birds, who otherwise would starve to death.

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Spread peanut butter on a pinecone. Roll it in birdseed. Tie with string and hang from a tree branch.

Birds get a high-protein winter snack. Kids get a fun nature craft.

Cost: $0 if you forage pinecones from your yard.

12/20/2025

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🌿 Create a Calm Habitat That Supports Birds, Insects, and Amphibians

A calm habitat focuses on shelter, gentle movement, and natural materials that wildlife can use without disturbance.
Best suited for Zones 4–9 with regionally native plants.

• Dense shrubs — provide quiet resting and nesting cover for birds.
• Flowering natives — supply nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.
• Ground cover plants — retain moisture and protect amphibians from heat and predators.
• Fallen wood and leaf layers — offer shelter for insects and food sources for the wider ecosystem.
• Shallow water access — supports frogs, birds, and insects without creating risk.

🌿 When a garden feels calm and protected, wildlife settles in naturally and returns season after season.

12/18/2025

We had a wonderful Xmas potluck and a fun holiday gift exchange on 12/17 Wednesday. Good food and fun times!

11/04/2025

The 12 early-blooming native plants are:
1. Prairie Violet (Viola pedatifida)
2. Eastern Blue Phlox (Phlox divaricata)
3. Lanceleaf Tickseed (Coreopsis lanceolata)
4. Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium reptans)
5. Shooting Star (Dodecatheon meadia)
6. Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis)
7. Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium)
8. Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea)
9. Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)
10. Blue-Eyed Mary (Collinsia verna)
11. Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla patens)
12. Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum)

The Spring Hungry Gap happens before most gardens bloom. For bees, that means famine — and mass queen die-offs. Here’s 12 early-blooming natives to plant now and break the cycle.

10/09/2025

If you trickled water on a dry sponge and on a brick, which would have a puddle around it sooner?

Turf Grass has a place and a purpose ... Sports fields, movie-night-in-the-park, a place for dogsh*t .... But making mowed turfgrass the norm for both private residences as well as commercial properties and the margins of strip malls, retention ponds, highway embankments and all the other "nether regions" of human infrastructure is absolutely INSANE.

Even if you dislike plants or find them boring, using the native plants that evolved in your region as a "living machine" - to prevent flooding, prevent soil erosion, mitigate the effects of the urban heat island (through both evapotranspiratice cooling and shading the ground from the sun) - is just what makes practical sense.

Using native plants isn't "environmentalism", it is just *infrastructure*. The plants that spent millions of years evolving in your region are naturally going to be best suited to helping the land stay alive and intact, as well as reducing the devastating effects of heat waves and flooding.

If you don't think lawns cause flooding, then Get a penetrometer (which measures soil compaction) Stick it in the ground above turfgrass and see how deep it goes. Then do it to a native prairie planting. It'll stop at a few inches in the turfgrass (which is where the compaction starts since roots aren't breaking up the soil nor creating porosity). It'll go down a foot or two in the native prairie planting.

Encourage your local municipality to install natives along highway strips and around retention ponds and canals. It is just what makes sense.
And also...

Kill Your Lawn and Plant Native.

09/25/2025

These native shrubs provide berries and shelter through the coldest months, keeping birds fed when food is scarce.
1. Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) – Zones 3–9 • Bright red berries shine against snow.
🕒 Plant in spring or early fall.
2. Serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.) – Zones 4–9 • Fruits feed robins, cardinals, and thrushes.
🕒 Plant in spring or fall.
3. Viburnum (V. dentatum & others) – Zones 2–9 • Clusters of berries for dozens of bird species.
🕒 Plant in spring or fall.
4. Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) – Zones 3–9 • Late-summer fruit stripped quickly by birds.
🕒 Plant in spring or fall.
5. Dogwood (Cornus sericea, C. florida) – Zones 3–8 • Berries plus colorful winter stems.
🕒 Plant in spring or fall.
6. Bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica) – Zones 3–7 • Waxy berries feed migrating warblers.
🕒 Plant in spring.
7. Chokeberry (Aronia spp.) – Zones 3–8 • Tart berries persist into deep winter.
🕒 Plant in spring or fall.
8. Sumac (Rhus typhina) – Zones 3–9 • Red clusters stand tall even in snow.
🕒 Plant in spring.
9. Juniper (Juniperus virginiana) – Zones 2–9 • Blue berries loved by cedar waxwings.
🕒 Plant in spring or fall.

✨ Plant natives in spring or fall → support birds 🐦, pollinators 🐝, and a thriving backyard ecosystem 🌿.