Garden Talk: Incorporating Native Plants Into Our Landscape

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• For Better Veggies, Don't Forget About Bees

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  As Wisconsin gardeners begin to work the soil and plant seeds with hope for a fruitful year, one expert reminds them that a diverse landscape will yield a better crop.

  “People are becoming more and more aware of the value of diverse landscapes,” said Molly Fifield Murray, the outreach programs manager at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison. “And I think they realize that if they want tomatoes, they have to have bumble bees. And if you want to have bumble bees, you have to have diverse planting so they have something eat to nectar from and get pollen from when the tomatoes aren’t in bloom.”

  For sunny areas, Murray recommended using prairie plants, which can survive under dry or wet conditions. In shady and semi-shady areas, she said to use savannah plants. If planting under mature trees, she advised to use woodlands.

  Murray said biodiversity is important for vegetable gardeners and fruit growers alike. All it takes is a few wildflowers to attract some bees and butterflies to keep the circle of life alive.

  “If we don’t have bumble bees we lose an awful lot of the produce we eat, so it’s an important thing to think about the whole ecosystem,” Murray said.