This presentation explores the powerful connection between keystone plants and the insects that depend on them. You’ll learn how to implement “Soft Landings” in landscapes of all scales from home gardens to larger managed sites. This innovative habitat design and management strategy focuses on creating mini ecosystems beneath native trees to support pollinators throughout their life cycles. Participants will learn what defines a pollen specialist, discover examples of these fascinating bee-plant relationships, and understand how keystone plants function as foundational species in our ecosystems.
You’ll benefit from practical strategies on site preparation methods, herbicide considerations, and building a resilient plant matrix of sedges, cool-season grasses, and flowering keystone species. By the end of the presentation, participants will be equipped to design and install a Soft Landings planting that transforms conventional landscapes into thriving sanctuaries for bees, caterpillars, and other beneficial insects.
This event will NOT be recorded.
Heather Holm is a pollinator conservationist and award-winning author of four books: Pollinators of Native Plants (2014), Bees (2017), Wasps (2021), and Common Native Bees of the Eastern United States (2022). Both Bees and Wasps have won multiple book awards including the American Horticultural Society Book Award (2018 and 2022 respectively). She is the founder and chairof MinnesotaNative Bees, an online field guide illustrating the native bees ofMinnesota and beyond. Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native pollinators and native plants, and the natural history and biology of native bees and predatory wasps. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and many local publications. Heather is also an accomplished photographer and her pollinator photos are frequently featured in print and electronic publications.
Heather serves on the boards of the following non-profits: Friends of Cullen Nature Preserve and Bird Sanctuary, Friends of Minnetonka Parks, and the new Minnesota Oak Savanna Chapter of The Prairie Enthusiasts. In her spare time, she is an active community supporter, writing grants, and coordinating and participating in volunteer ecological landscape restoration projects of fire-dependent ecosystems. The latest project is a 13-acre oak savanna restoration that will provide thriving habitat for pollinators, birds, mammals, and passive, nature-based opportunities for people.
