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3 weeks ago | 
blog.nwf.org | Tess Renusch |Portia Bharath
Gardeners across the country are searching for flowers to make their gardens pop! While there are lots of considerations when it comes to choosing plants, one big one is whether they are native to your region!Native plants are essential to support local wildlife like butterflies, bees, birds, and more. Check out some of our favorite native flowers for beginner and expert wildlife gardeners alike.
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4 weeks ago | 
blog.nwf.org | Tess Renusch |Portia Bharath
It’s rare that we think of plants as having personalities. Plants don’t typically exhibit a lot of the behaviors that we associate with personalities like talking, walking around, making faces, or even, well, having a face! But that doesn’t mean that plants don’t have character!Native plants form the base of any natural food web.
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Oct 14, 2024 | 
blog.nwf.org | Robert Watkins |Tess Renusch |Portia Bharath
Did you know the creator of Pokémon was an avid bug collector and amateur entomologist as a kid? His love of exploring nature and watching insects in their various life stages inspired this hit game.
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
blog.nwf.org | Tess Renusch |Portia Bharath
If you’ve ever lived in a region with fireflies, you’re probably most familiar with them as flying insects that light up the sky with their rhythmic blinking. But did you know that most of a firefly’s life can be spent under the leaves? Like many insects, fireflies go through multiple life stages. The flying bugs we see are their adult form, but before they reach adulthood they first pass through their larval and pupal stages.
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Jul 29, 2024 | 
blog.nwf.org | Tess Renusch |Danielle Korman
For anyone who has ever filled a bird feeder, there’s a unique kind of joy that comes from seeing the first songbird visit. Even those who may not consider themselves “birders” quickly become enamored with the diversity of colors, sizes, songs, and behaviors, and begin to seek out ways to attract more species to their gardens.
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
blog.nwf.org | Tess Renusch |Portia Bharath
Catching a firefly is like catching a star. It’s a core memory for many American children: the crisp summer evening air, the far-off songs of insects and frogs, and the magical glow of a firefly delicately cupped between a child’s hands. These incredible insects can be found in every state of the continental United States, with some regions boasting more than 50 species! Like many insects though, the fireflies are experiencing a sharp decline.
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Jun 6, 2024 | 
blog.nwf.org | Tess Renusch |Portia Bharath
The bees need our help, and no, we’re not referring to honeybees! While honeybees can be an incredibly helpful domesticated species, they’re not native to America. In fact, most of our native bees don’t form hives or make honey at all, which make them very docile insects because they don’t have to defend their home and food source. Instead most native bees are solitary, with one female bee laying a series of egg chambers in a tunnel either in the ground, a dead plant stem, or in tunnels in wood.
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May 13, 2024 | 
blog.nwf.org | Tess Renusch |Portia Bharath
By planting native and providing wildlife with food, water, cover, and places to raise young, a garden of any size can become a wildlife haven. Many of the gardening strategies outlined in this quiz can help you attract a variety of wildlife. To find out examples of what your garden might attract, take the quiz below! Garden Habitats, Wildlife Facts | Garden for Wildlife, Garden Habitats, native plants, quizPublished: May 13, 2024 Thank you for Protecting Wildlife, People, and Our Planet.
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May 1, 2024 | 
blog.nwf.org | Ciara O'Brien |Tess Renusch |Portia Bharath
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”These words, spoken by renowned poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, allude to the impact of planting just one acorn — one seed can set the groundwork for thousands of more trees to come. What you may not have realized, though, is that there is an even deeper truth to this quote: planting one acorn doesn’t just open the door for future oaks, but for countless other life forms, too.
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Apr 19, 2024 | 
blog.nwf.org | Tess Renusch |Dana Jensen McNamara
Look around almost any neighborhood in the United States and you’re likely to see acres and acres of turf grass. How we got to this point of ‘lawn-superiority’ is the result of a deep and troubling history that we explored in our first blog of this lawn series, but where we go from here is just as important. While lawns might be the American standard, that doesn’t mean they are the best choice for wildlife—or even for people.
