How to create a pollinator-friendly landscape
- Focus on a "healthy" environment, not a perfect landscape.
- Choose plants that provide food and habitat for pollinators.
- Plant a bee lawn. Replace lawn areas that are difficult to mow with shrubs and flowers.
- Adopt best practices in landscape maintenance to improve plant health and eliminate the need for pesticides.
- See our list of recommended trees and shrubs for pollinators.
Pollinators help plants that bring us food and other resources. By carrying pollen from one plant to another, pollinators fertilize plants and allow them to make fruit or seeds. Pollinator health is critical to our food system and the diversity of life across the world.
Bees are one of the most well-known pollinators, but there are a variety of other pollinators, including ants, flies, beetles and birds.
Each of us can contribute to pollinator-friendly environments.
- Plant flowers with pollen and nectar.
- Create habitat and nesting sites for pollinators.
- Eliminate the use of pesticides that are dangerous to pollinators.
Create a pollinator-friendly landscape
- Annual flowers that attract pollinators
- Creating a butterfly garden
- Nests for pollinators
- Planting and maintaining a bee lawn
- Planting and maintaining a prairie garden
- Trees and shrubs for pollinators
- Bee and pollinator books by Heather Holm
- Pollinators and their habitat - Minnesota Department of Agriculture
Is your garden and yard pollinator-friendly ALL year ’round? This video shows you how to adjust your fall cleanup routine to help pollinators through the fall and winter and make your landscape home to native pollinators. (2018; 06:23)
Pollinator biology and identification
- Wasps and bees
- Guide to Minnesota bumble bees: Females(2014, PDF)
- Guide to Minnesota bumble bees: Males(2014, PDF)
- Common pollinators in Minnesota landscapes(2007, PDF)
Pollinator conservation and volunteer opportunities
UMN Twin Cities Bee Campus
The University of Minnesota is an affiliate of Bee Campus USA. You can visit a variety of pollinator habitats on the Twin Cities campus.
University of Minnesota Bee Lab
The Bee Lab promotes the conservation, health, and diversity of bee pollinators through research, education, and hands-on mentorship.
Pollination on fruit and vegetable farms
Without pollinators moving pollen between plants, the fruits or seeds we harvest from our crops will not develop.