Next Event:

From Canopy to Groundlayer,

Building Soft Landings with Keystone Plants for Pollinators, with Heather Holm

June 16, 7 PM

This presentation explores the powerful connection between keystone plants and the insects that depend on them. You’ll learn how to implement “Soft Landings” in landscapes of all scales from home gardens to larger managed sites. This innovative habitat design and management strategy focuses on creating mini ecosystems beneath native trees to support pollinators throughout their life cycles. Participants will learn what defines a pollen specialist, discover examples of these fascinating bee-plant relationships, and understand how keystone plants function as foundational species in our ecosystems.

You’ll benefit from practical strategies on site preparation methods, herbicide considerations, and building a resilient plant matrix of sedges, cool-season grasses, and flowering keystone species. By the end of the presentation, participants will be equipped to design and install a Soft Landings planting that transforms conventional landscapes into thriving sanctuaries for bees, caterpillars, and other beneficial insects.

Our Speaker:  Heather Holm is a pollinator conservationist and award-winning author of four books: Pollinators of Native Plants (2014), Bees (2017), Wasps (2021), and Common Native Bees of the Eastern United States (2022). Both Bees and Wasps have won multiple book awards including the American Horticultural Society Book Award (2018 and 2022 respectively). She is the founder and chair of Minnesota Native Bees, an online field guide illustrating the native bees of Minnesota and beyond. Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native pollinators and native plants, and the natural history and biology of native bees and predatory wasps. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and many local publications. Heather is also an accomplished photographer and her pollinator photos are frequently featured in print and electronic publications.

Registration will be available soon.