Thursday, August 14th

4:30pm-5:30pm

Zoom

When we plant local native plants, we build buffets to feed clouds of butterflies and feed our ecosystem!

Native plants look gorgeous in landscapes as varied as urban, residential, commercial and parks. Native plants evolved together on our varied geology, in our varied weather (droughts and deluges) and are the foundation of our food web of pollinators, birds and other wildlife.

Benefits of native plants will be compared to introduced plants for butterfly caterpillars and pollen specialist bees. Each of California’s butterfly caterpillars evolved to eat a small set of native plant leaves, as Monarch butterfly caterpillars co-evolved to eat only milkweed leaves.

Tools such as Calscape will be discussed to select and source local native plants for your projects.

Impacts of adding native plants in public and private spaces can be seen in this San Francisco and San Mateo counties native ecosystems iNaturalist project, which maps wild and planted local native plants and the butterfly caterpillars and some pollen specialist bees that use these native plants for food and habitat.

Impacts of adding native plants in public and private spaces can be seen in this Contra Costa-Alameda counties native ecosystems iNaturalist project, which maps wild and planted local native plants and the butterfly caterpillars and some pollen specialist bees that use these native plants for food and habitat.

Native plant lists for specific uses are available for free on CNPS-YB’s biodiversity resources webpage.

Bio

Susan Karasoff gardens in San Francisco’s clay and chert soil in former northern oak woodland. Susan is a member of the California Native Plant Society Yerba Buena chapter. Susan takes an “only the easiest plants survive” approach to gardening. Susan grows a buffet of native butterfly caterpillar, pollen specialist bee, edible, shade tolerant and colorful native plants.

Cost: ASLA Members Free, Non-Members $15

The zoom link will be sent upon registration.