All routes

Pollinators and their larvae

Adults need nectar, larvae need foodplants, and it is nearly always the foodplant that is missing.

Restoration·Wildlife
  1. 01
    A diverse wildflower meadow with native bees, butterflies, and hoverflies foraging on open blooms
    Restoration3623 min

    Pollinator Habitat: Beyond Honeybees

    Support the 20,000 bee species and the butterflies, moths, hoverflies, and beetles that hold ecosystems together.

  2. 02
    A solitary bee entering a nest hole in bare sandy ground
    Wildlife3084 min

    Native Bees: 20,000 Species Beyond the Honeybee

    The world's 20,000 wild bee species are mostly solitary, mostly overlooked, and outperform honeybees on most crops they touch.

  3. 03
    A peacock butterfly feeding on a flower head with a moth resting on foliage nearby
    Wildlife0595 min

    Butterflies and Moths: Nectar Is the Easy Half

    Adults need nectar and larvae need specific foodplants — and it is almost always the foodplant, not the flowers, that is missing.

  4. 04
    A green cabbage looper caterpillar arching across a chewed brassica leaf in morning light
    Wildlife0725 min

    Caterpillars: Reading the Flight Calendar

    The five caterpillars that hit a temperate garden hardest, when their parent moths fly, and how to break the cycle without spraying everything dead.

  5. 05
    A hoverfly feeding on a flat-topped umbellifer flower head
    Wildlife2224 min

    Hoverflies: Pollinator and Pest Controller in One

    How hoverflies deliver both pollination and aphid control in one insect family, and why flat-topped umbellifer flowers pull them in.

  6. 06
    A dragonfly resting on a reed stem above a vegetated pond margin
    Wildlife1375 min

    Dragonflies and Pond Life: Years Underwater, Weeks in the Air

    The larva is the animal — spending up to five years underwater as an apex predator before a few weeks of flight.

  7. 07
    A summer hay meadow with knapweed, oxeye daisy, and yellow rattle in flower, with a low cut strip along one edge
    Restoration2855 min

    Meadow Management: The Hay Cycle That Builds a Hundred-Year Habitat

    A wildflower meadow is a hayfield with patience. The cutting, grazing, and parasite plant that turn ryegrass back into 40-species pasture.

  8. 08
    An unmown field margin with tall grasses, wildflowers, and scattered young trees beside a mown path
    Restoration3924 min

    Rewilding Edges: The Biodiversity of Untidiness

    Why the boundaries you stop mowing become the richest part of your land, and how to manage the social pushback while nature reclaims the margins.