00:00:33,930	Welcome to our Gateway to Science Pollinator Garden. Connie, thank you for having us today and being able to tour this wonderful pollinator garden. Just to kind of ask a little background. How did this project get started? As you know, the Master Gardener program starts out with a coursework.

00:00:56,630	I tell people it's like going back to college, but in a fun way, because you're learning about everything you love. If you're a gardener, you'll love the Master Gardener course. At the end of the course, there is a requirement for 48 hours of volunteer work within two years. And when I finished my coursework, I was literally driving up bringing grandsons to their favorite place in Bismarck.

00:01:20,830	This place is high traffic. Very much. Well north of 100,000 visitors a year. Come through Gateway to Science. Plus there's a lot of outreach. So this is kind of part of the outreach. We drove up and I saw some places that hadn't yet been landscaped, and I saw a few weeds. And I love.

00:01:44,230	I have learned about you that you. See a weed. You're going to take care of. So gratifying. It's like vacuuming or painting. You can see what you've done. Yes. So I contacted Beth Demke, the executive director, and said, hey, I'd love to volunteer.

00:02:04,070	Do you need some help? And her response was, well, we're just we have a committee going to plan the outdoor learning space, join the committee. So that's how I got started with the pollinator garden, because I quickly learned the committee was determined not just to have that inside wonderful facility outdoors, but also to have a pollinator garden.

00:02:26,300	Isn't that awesome to have some outdoor education for kids and stuff, and also an area just so beautiful to bring kids outdoors and everything like that. So you were on the committee. Did you propose. A pollinator garden? Did they say, Connie, we are master gardener. What can we do? They they needed to learn about the Master Gardener resource first. Okay.

00:02:50,500	So I, taught everybody a little bit about that program, and then I reached out to you because we needed Master Gardeners to to flock together and help us get this established. So imagine a little more than a year ago, this was bare. There were some weeds here. There was. No fence.

00:03:11,670	The excavator, which I have to tell you, is a very popular feature of the explorer. And there are lots of other things in there. But the fence wasn't here. We had to wait to plant until the perimeter was established. Meanwhile, I wrote a grant and NDSU Extension gave us a grant. We got a grant from the Soil Conservation Service from Burleigh County.

00:03:33,200	We had some other grant sources. And actually Beth said, you know, you don't have to limit yourself to eight feet by 20ft if you want more space. And so. You got more. You got more. It looks like. I think we ended up about 30ft by 70ft.

00:03:57,630	So we had lots of room for shrubs and all kinds of pollinator friendly plants. We'll go through, but some of them are native. Some of them are are just hardy to zone four, which is Bismarck zone.

00:04:15,600	Did you have like an overall goal when you put that grant in or just like again, feeding to the Gateway to Science of an outdoor education and a way to get your volunteer hours and just honestly beautify the space. We had. As you well know, we had 15 people besides me. Yeah, raise their hand and say, I'll. Help you in.

00:04:37,770	What's interesting is that not a single one of us had extensive experience with pollinator gardens, but everybody said, well, we want to learn. And so we applied for a teaching garden. Grant you'll as we go through, you'll notice that the plants are labeled. So lots and lots of homeowners are now looking at their landscaping and saying, hey, I've heard about the need for pollinator friendly planting.

00:04:59,700	I want to do something, but I don't know anything about those plants. So literally any time of day or I wouldn't recommend it at night. Yeah. Because you can't see the labels. But this is wide open to the public. And all the all of the plants are labeled.

00:05:19,830	So you can get an idea of what does big bluestem grass look like in situ. What does little bluestem look like? We have prairie drop seed over there. We have so we have grasses, we have shrubs, and we have a few trees, all of which are designed to be pollinator friendly.

00:05:39,070	See, that's what I love when you have these public gardens too, because then community members can actually be like, well, I'm not familiar with this plant or what would that look like? How does that grow? How could that fit into my garden? Before we get started walking through. I'd like to talk about this.

00:05:58,400	I'd like to talk about the gateway to the garden and this larch that we have on the side. Well, the larch, we decided this is an excellent teaching opportunity because a Siberian larch. And in this case, it's the weeping form. They're very hardy. They're they're so North Dakota friendly. But it's unusual because it is a deciduous conifer. It is. I've written about this and it's to me a little fun. It it is.

00:06:24,900	And this, this weeping form is going to come up over and drape all the way down. The mature length will be more like 20ft. So this it's the typical perennial. First they sleep, then they creep, then they leap. So I'm thinking in the third year this is going to be. Really gonzo. But if you just touch the.

00:06:51,800	Yep they. Look like soft. The needles are soft. And then in the fall it gets beautiful golden. And then they drop. Yes. And it starts all over again. Yep. So it actually people don't need to be alarmed if they have this evergreen that it's not dead at all.

00:07:11,770	There used to be some highly visible larch on the boulevard in front of the Y, I think. I think they're gone now, but that was a great example of how beautiful this tree can be. Now, again, this is the weeping form. And that's not what people commonly plant. But can we talk about site. Yeah. Let's talk about this site. As we're here..

00:07:34,070	We have to I mean, it looks like this could have been a very challenging site to get rolling with. And we didn't know that when we started because it was covered with some black soil. But it turns out the black soil camouflaged both. What was below the surface? Clay. Yeah. And there are sand lenses on this.

00:07:56,330	On this bluff. Can you explain a sand lens to. Think of it? Think of it as a column of, of soil, sandy soil. So the interesting notation about that is we had to practically pray the plants in, we had to really work on excavating. And then we amended the soil.

00:08:19,000	We put a mix of didn't just put clay back in because that would smother the roots of many, even some of the native plants. So but it turns out this tree was going to be planted by the nursery that that sold it to us.

00:08:38,770	And I hustled over here to make sure that it was where it was supposed to be, because we had just the day, two days before we had chipped with a postal digger. We were chipping these out and pouring concrete so that so that it stays. And I was done. I came back and he was kind of going like this. I think he hit a sand lens.

00:09:00,530	He got lucky. And that is going to appreciate that sand lens as well. So we call her Lina. We need to. Lean, lean all the top. Well this is wonderful.

00:09:18,030	I think if you're ready, I mean, I would love to start exploring a little bit and highlight some of these pollinator plants and maybe what you chose and why you chose in the design of this garden. Sounds good.

00:09:30,170	So, Connie, right up here, up front we have some beautiful grass that is my height, are taller actually doesn't take much to beat me. But tell us about grasses. I think grasses in general are, you know, something that people overlook as adding into their garden. Ornamental grass can be very attractive. And pollinator friendly.

00:09:53,000	It is. This is little bluestem. Not so little about half my size. You're beginning to see it's setting the seeds and you're beginning to see that color. But the real color, I think, is in the big bluestem, which gets to be quite a bit taller. And by October this will be almost a purple. Blue. Yeah. You see.

00:10:17,070	So what we did with our labels is we not only put the name of the plant, but we, we also included a line about what it attracts. The grasses are very attractive to birds. The birds will feed on the seed heads. Yep. There they also provide habitat for ground nesting bees. Okay.

00:10:39,600	So 70% of the bee population, the pollinator population nests underground. Sure. We're used to thinking about hives of honeybees. That's not most of us. And so you'll see that we have wood mulch which is nesting friendly because. It's. Not that it's organic. It's not a tight fit. The bees can tunnel under it.

00:11:03,030	And then those grasses are attractive to the to the birds especially. You're standing. By know I see the beast and. My cat and they are happily. Active with that. The nectar and pollen. So not all of the pollinator plants, not all of the flowering plants are so pollinator friendly.

00:11:29,870	Yeah, they're going to go after plants that have that are a good source of nectar. There are good source of pollen. And not every plant, for example petunias. If you love petunias. I do love petunias. I talked about it, but. They're not necessary. You won't see words of pollinators, right? They'll just ignore the petunias. Some of the pollinators are a little.

00:11:52,430	I won't say colorblind, but they are attracted to certain colors. So cat mint is something that you see were filled with bumblebees here, the high in the back. Some people call it hyssop. Hyssop that's filled with bees. We find that the pollinators flock to zinnias and cosmos. Zinnias are.

00:12:19,270	They are one of the best, I believe, flowers to grow every year because of exactly what you're talking about. When I plants Indians every year, or Adam into a garden. Butterflies among butterflies. Bees like this is a prime time this August into September that you will just see them on full display.

00:12:40,730	Yeah. So you do incorporate annuals in this garden? I like that. We do have some annuals. I will tell you, because of the site challenges we don't have as many areas for annuals. We basically established those last year. Keep in mind this is only season two for this garden. So it's it's unreal.

00:13:01,470	We're pretty pleased with how many pollinators have found us at this point. So some of these are spring blooming, some are mid-season and then some are fall blooming and then some. Just like the cat mint. This is Walker's low and that cat mint started blooming back in early June and it just keeps going even though we haven't dead headed.

00:13:25,530	Yeah, we do some deadheading. I see we need to clip a few of the Corey and that will just keep encouraging the bloom. We also provide a resting spot and a water source for the pollinators. So you'll see two bird baths. We'll go back into the garden and you'll see the other one if.

00:13:45,770	You would like to just okay. So you kind of elaborate. We're talking about needs of a pollinator garden. You talked about spring blooming, summer blooming, fall blooming you know, making sure that you have food all year round. Water source. How important is it to have a rock within there? It's really important. It's a resting spot.

00:14:04,870	It is. Yes. And some of the pollinators, if imagine yourself a butterfly trying to get that drop of essential water but not fall in and get wet. So there's always a resting spot and we change that water out very frequently. If you have a water source in your home garden, you're going to want to change it frequently.

00:14:28,300	Also because it's a vector control. Yeah, yeah, mosquitoes will will love it if you keep it the water stagnant. So we freshen that up constantly. Yes. Okay. Let's should we jump over a little bit to this side of the garden. Let's think that I got to tell you to as we're walking this walking path, this flagstone.

00:14:51,270	Andy and I came up here one morning and just. We borrowed flagstone from another part of the project, and we created a pathway because the Master Gardener group had picked a date to come and kind of gather everybody and start planting.

00:15:14,530	But it was a big space and, and we thought we needed to divide it, and then we needed to provide a pathway for people coming through so they could look at the labels on each side and they can get closer to the plants. So there's a pathway that leads to the the second birdbath, but it's rimmed with shrubs. Yeah.

00:15:37,200	All of the all of the plants were selected deliberately to serve one purpose or another. And as you noted, we have to have seasonal. We also chose native plants. Yeah. Prairie rose, we have our right. Prairie rose that is not yet blooming. But remember sleep creep leap. Yeah. We're waiting for this to leap next year. The Minotaur bomb. This is the native form.

00:16:06,000	And we have another bomb that is is a cultivar. Yeah. But the bomb is has paused, and now it's going to send out more flowers. We have to. Those are very popular plants. Well, beautiful rich color again as well. This is I mean and look at all the blooms that you get off of this.

00:16:28,470	So if you have a butterfly that I won't say colorblind but is color challenged, is attracted to a certain color like red, we've provided different colors. Hummingbirds will be attracted to read. And so we have a cardinal flower up front that we hope we haven't seen hummingbirds yet. But again, it's only our second summer.

00:16:53,270	Maybe even in a hummingbird feeder would be great, you know, down the road. Yes. You no one plant. I got to say. We just got to walk back to that I noticed is your echinacea this lemon. So most, most viewers and stuff are going to be known for the purple coneflower.

00:17:11,830	But to get a lemon in a different color. How fun. So that is part of the sombrero series. It's one of the proven winner plants. It is. So obviously it's a cultivar, but it is an echinacea. It we're this is new this year. We're hoping it comes back again.

00:17:32,630	The site is challenging because we're up on the bluffs above the Missouri River. Sure. So what we will do this fall when it's time to put the garden to bed, we'll take we'll borrow some of our wood chips back and mound up a bit to try to protect loose, loose habitat still for the ground nesting pollinators.

00:17:53,430	But try to protect the plants a little bit. Yeah, that snapdragon is from seed. That's amazing. That's a direct. So there are lots of pollinator friendly plants that are direct. So I encourage people to look at the back of the seed packets. Yeah. And follow directions there. They know what they're talking about.

00:18:15,900	So the direct so would be the the snapdragons the they're they're very pollinator friendly. These are from last year. We had this is sort of our annual area back. Here area okay. And some of the just came back from self-seeking. The orange and yellow is the variety called bright lights. And those are direct.

00:18:47,130	So we experimented with both starting them in a peat cup and direct. So and both both worked. But there are some plants. You look at the back of the package if it says direct. So it's probably because that plant doesn't like to be moved. Sure. Like California poppy. Yeah, a very pretty plant but direct.

00:19:04,670	So you know you mentioned earlier like okay, so we've talked again blooming throughout our growing season. You talked about some of the pollinators we attract. You talked a little bit about color blindness. So that's one thing too I know I've talked to other groups about. Planting. In color clusters to be more attractive.

00:19:24,170	So again when you're designing this you were thinking all about that word show. Well, we were thinking about it, but frankly, we were finding we were learning our way forward because again, we had some site challenges. We did lose a few plants this winter.

00:19:45,070	And so some of when I say the lemon yellow is a new from the sombrero echinacea, that. Salsa. Is from the same grouping. There's an orange Adobe sunset up front. Those are all new, and it's because we had a few plant failures. But basically we're hoping to have some self seeding plants happy here. Let's talk a little bit about the shrubs.

00:20:10,170	Should we highlight some of the shrubs you got? Sure. All right. Hydrangea. This one is Bobo. That one up front is Bobo, the one in the middle. I just. Remember Sunday, and this is actually. I'm just going to call it not Bobo. I was going to tell you. So I talked earlier this year.

00:20:30,630	I went to the gardening day in Saturday in Grand Forks, and they had a gentleman from Bailey's who works with hydrangeas in the research, one of his recommended varieties for North Dakota. So drawbridge Sunday. Yes.

00:20:54,030	And it's going to get that kind of antique ish pink that will just that is going to be popping probably within a month I would say. So what I've been encouraging people to do is come back to the garden periodically, don't just come once and walk through and say, oh, I like that plant. I wonder where that came from.

00:21:12,230	Come back and see the changes in the plants and the changes in the pollinator habits, what they're doing in early spring. And we'll talk about one of the early spring plants in a moment. But what what they're looking for in early spring. Versus different. In the later in the fall. This is showy goldenrod. This looks like nothing but a tall. Some would say we'd. Show that.

00:21:39,270	Showy goldenrod is going to be filled with blooms in the fall, when little else is in full bloom. Yep. So here's our purple echinacea. You mentioned the. Purple flower that. And we have we have both. That's a volunteer. This was not planted here last year. Balloon flower was planted here.

00:22:04,300	So that's why you don't see a label on it against the fence. Beth said if we if you can give us flowering vines, that'll be wonderful. Yeah. So we have clematis, we have that's a Japanese honeysuckle. And then we have a major hall honeysuckle, which is that orange honeysuckle that people are used to seeing. Those came back.

00:22:30,200	So we're happy about that. This allium. So people think about onions. This is an onion I know an allium and this one is millennium. It's very popular with the pollinators. So I recommend this to people. If you're looking to plant something that will then also self seed money is beautiful. Allium. And this is the Haifa.

00:22:56,870	Yeah it's it's got lots of activity. Yeah. We're going to have another guest join us a little bit later to talk about specific. But we definitely got lots of bees going on here. We'll come back. Heliopolis. Here's the one I wanted to mention. This is Prairie smoke. This is one of my favorite prairie flowers. It's just beautiful.

00:23:17,900	If you can't start native crocus, which always bloomed on my dad's ranch. I'm an April baby, so that was always my treat. He would come up to Bismarck with a bouquet of of the prairie crocus. On memory. But I don't have those here. And so we have prairie smoke, and it's a beautiful early spring plant. It is.

00:23:41,800	I have it at my place, too, but that's because we have lots of pasture there. So. Yeah. So Heliopolis and more. And we have some people call it Speedwell, Veronica. And then the milkweed. We have swampy milkweed over here, which is one of the host plants for the monarch. It is.

00:24:02,630	And it's not as aggressive as your common milkweed. So that's that's good. Common milkweed is considered a pest. I think Burleigh County may have it on its. Yeah. Do we have it on. It's more of like what we're going to call a troublesome or aggressive. So there we go.

00:24:18,970	When we talk about milkweed you know again in a garden you're definitely going to be wanting to look at something like swamp milkweed or you mentioned earlier, the butterfly. We'd both milkweed. We walked right by our butterfly weed. But they're both Asclepias. Yep. And this one is happy again.

00:24:39,330	This is only the second year we haven't noticed that the monarchs are using it as a host plant, but that will come. Yes. Creep. Sleep creep. I love that. And then we should talk about jobs. Cheers. Because that's a little fun fact. And I it almost looks like they got those little snappers laying below that. You get, you know, fireworks season.

00:25:01,200	But tell us about. This is millet. This is a millet. These little seeds. These are wonderful. And dropped seeds last fall. So the kids have. This is the tier Yes. That's the teardrops, tears. The kids planted these early in the spring, and then they came out.

00:25:26,370	Some of our camper kids came out and planted this little semi-circle of jobs tears. But it's essentially where the job's tears were last year. So that's. Why. You and I are seeing. And then and then they can make they can make bracelets, necklaces, etc.. How fun. Dual purpose. Yes.

00:25:44,200	So, you know, as we've kind of walked, one thing I've really noticed about this garden to is you're not a rectangular square. We got curvature along the edge. We got curvature going through. Any reason for that. Or again you got more space than you anticipated. Mother nature does not plant in rows. It does not. And so we shouldn't be planting in rows.

00:26:06,100	I'd agree with that. And we do. We do have a little revision. If you interviewed my husband, he would tell you that I moved plants all the time, including annuals. Well, not in the heat of summer, but for example, this this Heliopolis just went crazy and so did the hyssop. And they're crowding out the main night.

00:26:31,300	Sell salvia. Which is a very popular plant. Very beautiful too. Again. So we're probably going to need to move this out a bit. So it has its own space. But but for the most part we got lucky. I love that, you know. You okay. So you just said something about revisions and stuff.

00:26:51,430	Let me ask you, future what do you have future plans? Will this garden grow? What? What's your thoughts when you think into the future? What's this going to look like? I hope I'm planting daisies before things die. Here. I'm pushing up daisies. Yeah, but.

00:27:14,800	So the inside of the explorer is the native low growing grasses that won't need mowing. And that can take high traffic. That's how we chose the three varieties in there. Makes sense. The I don't know in the future if we'll decide. Well, we could we could have some more pollinator plants here or there. But if you look around the grounds.

00:27:38,330	Yeah, there are possibilities because these, especially the native plants, are very North Dakota friendly. A Kentucky bluegrass lawn is not so frankly, no. So I'm making no promises about the future. But I do have my eye on going that way. Going that way? Well, because there's water there.

00:28:03,330	And if we go this way, we're over the edge of the butte and interfering with the bike trail. So you're mentioning lawn belongs. Perhaps we do have beeline plans back this way. Okay. The sign that you see on the interstate for Gateway to Science, right behind that is a hive that the that the North Dakota Department of Agriculture brings every year.

00:28:27,830	And there's going to be a webcam so that you can dial in and watch the activity as the bees come out of neat. It's not there yet, but it will be. We've talked with Beth about overseeing White Clover or, you know, a mixture, a beeline friendly mixture on that edge.

00:28:47,830	This whole top of the bluff is essentially reserved for the future addition to gateway to Science. Okay, but meanwhile, Beth has said, as long as you don't mind revision in the future, like, oh, we have enough money to add on that wing. Yeah, we have opportunities our viewers aren't going to be able.

00:29:12,070	But to help notice this exploring behind us that we've mentioned a couple times, I think we should bring out Annie, and you and Annie can tell us a little bit about the Gateway to Science Center and the programs and what they're utilizing this for. Great idea.

00:29:33,730	Annie has been our principal staff contact, and she has been out getting her hands just as dirty as the Master Gardener group. So let's talk to Annie.

00:29:49,170	You're the Stem, one of the Stem educators in Gateway to Science. We're standing inside the explorer where I've been when the kids are here. Talk about how you use this space for outdoor education. It's super fun. So, yeah, we are open to the public every afternoon here so anyone can come.

00:30:08,100	But then we also have our camps and clubs in here as well. And so during the summer we have all summer long. Kids are here for camp. And so they are the ones taking care of the vegetables and the herbs and doing the harvesting.

00:30:25,770	We have our club kids starting seeds and doing some of the early preseason preseason work in our after school clubs during the school year, learning all about the pollinator garden and how important pollinators are to our state. So lots of learning opportunities in nature. So I think the statistic is 1 in 3 bites of food you eat relies on a pollinator.

00:30:48,770	Talk about what the kids have done for some of the plants in here. Some of the raised beds. Yeah. So we have tomatoes, peppers, we have cucumbers, we have gourds, lots of different types of herbs, carrots. And so that's one big thing that we talked about is everyone loves seeing a beautiful butterfly.

00:31:09,430	But beyond that, the importance of pollinators for all of the foods that we eat. Let's talk about the tree. Yeah, because trees are important to pollinators as well. Absolutely. That's a little leaf linden. We planted it this spring in memory of Frank cook, whose I always think of Frank as the father of Gateway to Science.

00:31:31,570	It was his vision. He and Kay and their kids, I know, took many a trip off the road just to go to an interactive science center, and it was their vision that resulted in this. Started in in a shoe store, a former shoe store in Gateway Mall. And come a long way. It has come.

00:31:55,230	It's come a very long way. The Linden is also a popular tree for pollinators, so it's a good thing. Frank, who was also he was a chemistry professor, but he was also a woodworker. Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful art. And Linden was one of his favorite woods to carve.

00:32:16,330	And so we have a little leaf linden that is also part of the pollinator habitat. It's fun to continue on his his love of nature and trees and the science behind all of that. We have we have pollinator shaped xylophones that just. We do. We have three musical instruments here, a donation we are very excited to have this summer.

00:32:36,330	And so we have a sunflower and we have bees and dragonflies that our guests and our camp and club kids can come and enjoy music with them. The kids I have been here when the when the camps are happening and the kids are just all over this place, they're they're watering all of their favorite spots.

00:32:54,230	And this this is only our, our our second summer in the garden in this space. And so we're trying we have baby grass all around us with an oat cover crop. I've seen the kids in here watering the grass. So we have three native grasses that we try, that we're trying to coax into life.

00:33:15,070	It's been a tough summer. We have buffalo grass, Scytodes, grandma and grandpa. Yep. Those are the three. And thanks to the Soil Conservation Service, we have seed that's starting to show a little life. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I've been it's been a tough, hot, dry summer.

00:33:35,470	But we're we're doing our best and the grass is doing its best to come. So hopefully it'll continue to come more and more. Talk about programing with the greenhouse behind us. Yeah. So we do have a greenhouse so far before summer and then after summer when it's a little bit too chilly to be growing things out.

00:33:52,270	Here we are in North Dakota so we can start things earlier in the spring and then finish things later in the fall and still have a nice warm area for our plants to be. And we also have beautifully decorated on the edge by a local artist. Beautiful mosaics featuring some of our pollinators.

00:34:12,030	Paul Newton was the artist for the mural, and we have to have some close ups because his work is. His work is always beautiful, but I especially like the pollinator mural. Oh yeah, absolutely. With the bees and their monarchs and even getting into little monarch egg details. Yeah. That was.

00:34:42,900	I would just say again, as we walked through this beginning of August, the amount of blooming, the amount of activity, this is definitely a public garden worth visiting. And I hope our viewers do. I hope they come up and they see that.

00:35:01,200	Is there anything else that you would like to highlight within this garden? I would like to thank the extension service. Without the grant that we got, without your outreach to get us a group of people, I mean, we have had so much help. The Soil Conservation Service now called what NRCS no conservation, soil conservation. Yeah. I think you know, Jaden. I guess.

00:35:21,700	We've worked with him on the on the grass mixture. We've reached out to all kinds of state and federal professionals in the field, because the thing about Master Gardeners is that you could even be an old gardener like me, with many decades of experience.

00:35:42,570	But a good day in the garden is the day you learn something new, and if you're not constantly learning, then you're not much of a garden gardener. And so you can you can earn the title of Master Gardener, but you still don't know everything you need to know. Know that. But you know who to call gardeners.

00:36:02,170	There is always something to learn and it is amazing to see different garden methods people try and find research on as well. But you I think always to I love touring because there's always inspiration that comes from a tour. I agree, I agree. Yeah, well, I can't thank you enough, Connie. Pleasure bringing us out here for offering up again.

00:36:24,600	You planted this roughly what month last year? June of last year. June. So we are one year old and two months. And this would never have been guessed. If somebody would come up here, they would never guess that based on the production you have. I think your colleague guessed five years. No, we've only been here for 14 months. We need to talk pollinators.

00:36:43,770	We need to talk to. A special guest coming up with us here. So we'll finish that off. We're going to finish this garden off talking about the pollinators that are here. Okay.

00:37:03,830	Well, now I'd like to introduce to you guys, Dale Heinert. Did I say that right? Heinert. Yep. Welcome. I've heard you have been involved in this pollinator garden and are the resident pollinator expert or bee expert. Oh, sort. Of sort of. All right. Hobby. It's a hobby. It's a hobby.

00:37:23,470	Can you elaborate to us a little bit about what you do within the garden. Then we're going to talk. Beast. I usually look to see if there are different varieties of species or types of bees that are in here. We can see the bumblebees very quickly because they're big. Yeah, there's a lot of little ones.

00:37:42,070	There's mining bees. There's sweat bees. There's I saw a cellophane be here just this morning when I walked in, which is really unique. It uses its juices to make a kind of a salad like. Yeah. On its outside of its tunnels.

00:38:02,500	And 70% of the bees here live in tunnels in the ground, maybe 20% live in twigs and stems and that kind of stuff. Only a few live in colonies. Colonies. Carpenter bees and bees. And then the only one lives in a hive, and that's the honeybee. So we have quite a bit of diversity of bees in North Dakota. Yeah.

00:38:24,700	You were talking a little bit earlier today with me about, you know, the amount of diversity we see, how many species, how many species are we seeing here. You said what's what's kind of the popular species. Popular species would probably be the mining be okay. There's a lot of little ones, but there's probably about 20 or 30 bumblebees in here right now.

00:38:43,170	Yeah, but you don't see a little like you see the big ones. How many species total within North Dakota? Do you know that? Probably about 300. 300. Okay. And about 20. Some of those are honeybees or bumblebees, excuse me. And about 70% are ground dwelling solitary bees.

00:39:03,570	What do you think? Like, I mean, again, viewers, if they don't know this. What what's the importance of honey in our state? Well, honey is is an agricultural thing in our state. Is we're number one. People don't realize that.

00:39:24,400	Well, because it helps pollinate crops and some of the foods like alfal But we really need the native bees, too, because some of the grasses, most of the grasses self pollinate, but there is some that pollinate through bees tomatoes. They have a hard time self pollinating. They almost need a bumblebee to bosom because they have a they there.

00:39:44,300	There's very odds and ends of things that these do with that, that to keep the pollinating going. The Beatles pollinate. We got a lot of beetles. There's something in here right now. So I listed beetle the other day, which they're young. Eat. Yeah. They eat grasshopper eggs. Yeah. So they, they're beneficial to in a way.

00:40:03,200	Do we want to go over here, maybe check out and you can point out or talk about some of the bees we're seeing or even just pollinators like, I mean, again, I hear you're the guru, the expert on identifying. Yeah, there's there's a mining be right down here. We really can see it. Yeah, a lot smaller. That's a Longhorn. Be right there.

00:40:26,400	It's got a real long antennae. Okay. There's a bumblebee. Yeah, I got one over on my side, too. They're usually pretty docile. They don't. Staying females are the only ones that are staying in an old repository.

00:40:44,800	Do you find them active during certain points of the day versus others? Well, bumblebees have more of a fur bond to them, so they come out when it's cooler and stay out later in the day. But they don't like the heat as much either. But but you'll find the bees are sleeping on some of these plants till it gets warm enough to wake up.

00:41:01,630	Wake up? Yeah, the females will sleep in their hole in the ground. The males will sleep all in the plant. So for somebody visiting and everything again, obviously if you have an allergy, that's something to be concerned about.

00:41:16,270	But if you don't, is there any way that you should conduct yourself around these? Or again, you talk about docile, I'll say, as Connie and I have been walking throughout today, they've been going around. How do people need to fear? Not at all. Not at all. No, they they don't sting unless you touch them or squeeze them.

00:41:35,000	And if you happen to find one of their nests, there might be a little bit anxious. But yeah, but that's all these surveys I've done. I've never found one would be nest. Have you always had like a love for bumblebees or what got you into, you know, taking, I guess, an interest in pollinators and bumblebees.

00:41:55,430	I grew up on a farm in Morgan County, and then I went to school and was an engineer forever. And after I retired, I said, I want to get back outside and do things. Yeah, I did a lot of inside stuff and just wander around, and I started seeing all these things. I want to know what they are.

00:42:08,830	So starting to get a little, a little bit knowledge about them. And people helped me by telling me, you know, that's not what it is. I mentioned. You mentioned surveying. Can you elaborate a little bit about what you do surveying. And is this garden part of surveying? It can be, can be.

00:42:27,370	And here's a nice little golden winged or on the hunt. Yeah. By survey what Xerxes society asked for volunteers to go out and look at a hectares of land size of two football fields and see how many bees bumblebees you can find in 45 minutes of looking, and then submit them

00:42:47,900	to get them cooled down, catch them in the net, pull them down, and then take pictures of them and send them pictures in and they'll tell you whether I was right or wrong in the species. Okay. And throughout North Dakota, I've gone to 50 different spots, probably over 1000 bumblebees. I've submitted to them. Yeah. They're everywhere.

00:43:08,900	That that is amazing. But it's hard finding in North Dakota these days. Good wildlife habitat for the bumblebees. There's too much over overgrazing, too much planting. It's just it's really hard and pesticides and been haven't been good for them either. So it's really hard or declining all over the state.

00:43:34,270	If you had to give like our viewers an example again, if they're like, you know what? Maybe I don't have a lot, but maybe I could add in a couple pollinator plants or be plants.

00:43:50,630	What would be your your suggestions for gardens? The easy ones would be to plant a man who was like cosmos and and zinnias did a lot of those this and sysops. Yeah. A lot of the plants that you see that are native are the ones that are going to attract the native ones.

00:44:05,970	If you plant something from your local flower shop that's not native, either the honey or excuse me, the nectar isn't as good or they just won't go to them. Very neat. Bees don't go to color, they go to Altra violet. Okay? They generally can't see red or blue at all. They can see yellow and white and green, I think. But they're there. This most of them go for color or for ultra violet bomb.

00:44:26,530	Oh, honey, it's the butterflies. They see all the colors. Look at the color of a butterfly there. Every color you can think of. Yeah, well, they go, they see those colors. Bees. They're usually not read or blue because they don't see them. That is neat. Very neat.

00:44:45,400	You know, we talked a little bit about the importance of obviously for pollination in our egg industry in the gardens. Do you have any other comments on how we can support bees? Well, they need habitat. They need a place where they can nest and bumblebees need like brush underneath a plant like this. They might put a nest in there. Okay. They also need water.

00:45:11,770	They a lot of the native bees, if they're searching for water, they're not collecting nectar or pollen for their brood. And if it gets really hot out, there's no water around their brood is going to suffer.

00:45:29,030	Well, I can't thank you enough for joining us today, Dale, but if there's anything else you want to mention to our viewers, I'm happy to share your knowledge and your education on this. I just go out and look and there's more there and you can think of. You stop and look and they don't hurt you. Yeah. Like I said, we've been moving around today. They've been buzzing. I'll tell you, I have allergies to bug bites.

00:45:45,830	But again, not even not even worrying about us. So much. Got a squeeze in this already. Well, again thank you. Dale, thanks for joining us this morning at the garden. Thanks for highlighting our garden, our pollinators that we see. And I can't thank Dakota Media Access again for coming out and doing a garden feature.

00:46:06,800	But as always, I hope our viewers that are regulars actually take a trip out before the end of the growing season. See this beautiful garden at Gateway to Science Center, and of course, join us on our future episodes. Dakota Growing is a gardening show brought to you by Dakota Media Access and NDSU Extension.

00:46:27,070	We discuss a variety of timely topics pertaining to your landscape, along with giving you tips and advice for your lawn, garden, and trees. If you have questions, call (701) 221-6865 or email NDSU.Burleigh.Extension@ndsu.com Dakota Growing airs on Radio Access 102.5 FM, Community Access channel 12 or 612 or online at FreeTV.org.