Native Grasses

While blooming plants are essential to pollinators like bees, bats, butterflies, beetles, hummingbirds, and more, grasses play a foundational role in the pollinator lifecycle. Grasses provide soil stability, protect waterways, create shelter and food for wildlife, and are an indicator of ecosystem health.

Habitat and Shelter: Grasses provide essential habitat and shelter for pollinators. Their dense foliage and upright growth form microhabitats that protect insects from adverse weather conditions, predators, or disturbances. The clumps or bunches of grasses also offer nesting sites for ground-nesting bees and other insects. Linear habitats along field margins such as field edges, hedgerows, and drainage ditches offer both nesting and foraging sites. Woodlots, conservation areas, utility easements, farm roads, and other undeveloped areas may also contain good habitat.

Erosion potential due to soils, slope, rainfall, and the producer’s objectives and capabilities should be considered when developing mixes. The combination of grasses and forbs also form a tight living mass that will resist weed colonization. Grasses are also essential to produce conditions suitable for burning if that is part of the long-term management plan. Burn only one-fourth of your planting.

Larval Host Plants: Certain warm-season grasses serve as larval-host plants for specific pollinator species. These grasses often provide forage resources for beneficial insects, including larval growth stages of native butterflies, potential nesting sites for colonies of bumblebees, and possible overwintering sites for beneficial insects, such as predatory ground beetles.

Butterflies lay their eggs on the grass, and the emerging caterpillars feed on the leaves. For example, little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) are the larval-host plant for several skipper species, and big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) are the caterpillar-host plants for banded skippers and satyrs. By incorporating these grasses into landscapes, we provide crucial resources for the complete life cycles of these pollinators.

Connectivity and Corridors: Warm-season grasses can create pollinator corridors and add connectivity between habitats. These grasses are often planted in large swaths or prairie restorations, forming a network of suitable foraging areas for pollinators. This correlation helps pollinators find suitable resources, enhancing their foraging efficiency and genetic exchange.

The number of bees, wasps, butterflies, beetles, flies, moths, and other pollinators such as hummingbirds, small mammals, and bats will increase as the native plants mature. Habitat plantings for pollinators can utilize flower pollen and nectar resources for adult stages, vegetative parts of plants for food, and cover resources for immature/larval stages. Incorporating grasses into pollinator-friendly initiatives and habitat restoration efforts can have a positive impact on the abundance and diversity of pollinators in our ecosystems. Only plant 30 percent grasses and 70 percent forbs in your mix.

This is taken in part from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service “Pollinators Need Native Grasses Too!” June 18, 2024.