How to celebrate Earth Day in your backyard

Cel­e­brate Earth Day 3 ways in your own back­yard: plant milk­weed for Mon­archs, bee friend­ly flow­ers & stop using her­bi­cides & pesticides.

Mon­archs and bees are dis­ap­pear­ing at an alarm­ing rate. Aside from beau­ty & hon­ey, their role in pol­li­na­tion means sur­vival of plants on our plan­et, and the people/animals that feed on plants. I am no Ein­stein (and the bee quote is ques­tion­able), but it does­n’t real­ly take a renown sci­en­tist to fig­ure this one out. : )

Mon­archs depend on milk­weed to sur­vive. This stuff appeared every­where when I was a kid! We loved open­ing the pods and watch­ing the silky strands release and car­ry the tiny seed on the wind. Aside from the crafts projects (and there were many), the pods had the most beau­ti­ful lin­ings. This sum­mer, my back­yard will sport some milk­weed in the flower beds as a small way to help keep the but­ter­flies from extinc­tion. And sad­ly, extinc­tion could hap­pen. Want to plant your own seeds? Many places offer them for free. The USDA Blog and the Nation­al Wildlife Fed­er­a­tion both have a great deal of help­ful information.

Hon­ey­bees also face rapid decline. For­tu­nate­ly, they love a wide vari­ety of flow­ers — peren­ni­al and annu­al! The good folks at Rodale Press put togeth­er a won­der­ful flower menu that bees love! Check it out!

Final­ly — go organ­ic, or as close as you can. Com­post, organ­ic soils and alter­na­tive pest con­trol options are all read­i­ly avail­able. And some­times, you may just find, there is beau­ty when you break free of those arti­fi­cial lawn pic­tures. Vio­lets, dan­de­lions and clover may just enrich your life.