Bees need all the help they can get these days, as concerns about Colony Collapse Disorder continue, and a new study reveals how important native plants are for honeybees and other pollinators.  So I encourage all of you gardeners out there to grow as many native plants as you can fit in your garden this year, and that goes for all first-timers, green veterans, and Michelle Obama, too!  There are lots of tasty edible plants that are great for attracting bees and other pollinators, including berries, melons, squash, cucumbers and basil, and plenty of beautiful flowers that can brighten up the borders of your garden.  Douglas W. Tallamy, an ecologist at the University of Delaware, and the author of “Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in our Gardens” told the New York Times:

If we gave them food — flowering native plants — and a place to build their nests, they would be able to take up the slack from decreasing honeybee populations.

And if you have a lawn, let it grow long and flower, bees will love it and your yard will be more colorful than those boring, labor- intensive manicured ones your neighbors have.  I sadly just lost many of my seedlings that I started from seed because we left them out for too long during the day, so I have a clean slate to begin growing more native plants.  Let me know what you’re planting this year in the comments section below!

Photo: aussiegall’s flickr photostream (creative commons)