Happy Earth Day!
Happy Earth Day and to celebrate we’re sharing our first post in the MN SEED Native Plant Community Science Project for Spring 2022. For those of you who are new MN SEED members you can find some wonderful resources to get you started at the Minnesota State Horticultural Society’s MN SEED project webpage https://northerngardener.org/mn-seed-project/. Don’t forget to click the “join MN SEED” button to receive all the latest information and MN SEED gathering dates.
It’s been an unusually cold spring here in Minnesota and many of our flora and fauna neighbors are later in appearance than in previous seasons. You can see this in the inaturalist posts shared and compare that to previous years’ phenology. But there is evidence of Spring. Maples and Willows are producing flowers and the earliest of our spring ephemera are beginning to bloom. MN SEED members are finding that migratory birds and waterfowl are looking for food sources like standing seed heads and are preparing nests. Overwintered native bees, wasps, flies and other insects are visible now too! Now is a great time to peek into your native plantings and add observations of what’s first appearing. We hope you’ll take a few moments this weekend to get out and share what you are seeing in the native plantings you are stewarding.
