Easy garden designs that also help native pollinators

Garden designs do not need to be complicated, expensive or time-consuming. Pollinators have simple needs: a year-round supply of pesticide-free food and water, and bare ground or wood for nesting. For questions about which plants are best, see my Top 10 Lists. Your garden will delight you and your family with new discoveries each day!

Garden design and plant list
Native plant garden illustration

This simple garden 10×13 design includes drought and heat tolerant plants that bloom and provide food most of the year, and are usually available locally.

Use an area (ie, 15×3) with good south-eastern exposure that is protected from winds. Look for underused areas of your property such as along the driveway, side of the house, back fence or ditch. For those without a small garden area, adapt design for use on roof gardens, porches, and windowsills.

Install a diversity of flowering plants. Use plants with diverse bloom-times, color, shapes and sizes, and group a minimum of 5-7 same-species plants together. Emphasize use of native plants which are well-adapted to local soil and climate conditions (hybrids do not provide genetic diversity)

Have an entire yard to fill?

I created this design for a friend whose yard was a blank slate. All plants are adapted for Houston’s hot, humid climate and drought-like conditions.

I recommend sprinkling annual wildflower seed in between perennial plants to create a diversity of flower sizes and shapes. While these plants are available at most Houston nurseries, please only purchase plants from nurseries that are certified pesticide-free!

3-Page Design with Plant List

Pollinator Garden Design for Large Spaces
Provide pollinator nesting sites

One of the largest threats to bees is a lack of safe habitat. Most native bees are solitary creatures, 70% of solitary bees live underground, while 30% live in holes inside of trees or hollow stems (only non-native honey bees live in hives)

  • Avoid wood bark mulch. Bees can’t build a nest if mulch covers the ground; consider compost instead, it provides similar weed suppression and water retention properties, yet allows for nesting and improves your soil.
  • Provide nesting sites. Unmanicured landscapes create habitats and protect ground nesting sites under leaf litter, brush, rocks, etc. Leave an untouched plot of land for them in your garden; make or purchase a “bee condo” with small tube “apartments” for bee residents.
  • Provide a safe haven. Keep area free of trash and animal waste that can attract insects harmful to pollinators. 
  • Provide trees for bees. Bees get most of their nectar from trees, which provide hundreds or thousands of blossoms, a great food source. Trees are also an essential habitat, leaves and resin provide nesting material, while natural wood cavities make excellent shelters. 
  • Create a bee bath. Bees work up quite a thirst foraging and collecting nectar. Fill a shallow bird bath or bowl with clean water, and arrange pebbles and stones to break the water’s surface where bees can land.

Gardens can be established in window boxes, flower pots, and planters; on roofs or in yards.

Garden lighting to reduce impact on pollinators

Like humans, insects need natural light/dark cycles, so limit artificial light sources, even half a dark night is better than none. Smart low-glare outdoor lighting benefits human and animals.

And FYI, termites swarm at night under certain conditions and they’re attracted to artificial light sources around the home, such as porch lamps, motion lights, and light reflected from inside. If artificial lighting is needed for human safety or security:

  • retain some dark areas; turn lights off when not in use, or use motion sensors or timers
  • mount fixtures low to ground; angle light downward below a 90-degree plane, and shield or hood light so not directly visible

Wavelength matters. To help pollinators consider the wavelength of your lighting:

  • use long-wavelength light greater than 560 nanometers (yellow, orange, red ~570-750nm)
  • may use dim white solar powered light, avoid colored solar light
  • avoid short-wavelength light (violet, blue, green ~400-510nm; white ~390-750nm); white LED light (5mW wavelength range ~275-950nm)
  • avoid light filters, gels, or lenses; multi-colored lights; broad-spectrum
  • minimize blue light emissions; bees are attracted to dangerous blue fluorescence in 430-480nm range

More lighting information:

SPREAD THE WORD: The solution to light pollution is 90% education and awareness, and 10% hardware.

Pollinator-friendly landscape management practices

These practices are safer for you, your family and pets, and the Earth.

  • Go chemical-free for bees. Avoid toxic synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, and neonicotinoids. Use organic alternatives and natural solutions like adding beneficial insects like ladybugs and praying mantises to help keep pests away.
  • Limit pruning. Bees make homes in dead or dying branches with hollow stems, if possible leave some dead trees and trunk stumps.
  • Till soil with care to avoid killing ground nesting bees.
  • Limit mowing grassy areas with low, dense cover. 

More information on organic alternatives.

Ecoregion Guide by Doug Tallamy

Plants do not distribute themselves according to political boundaries like state or county. Plants grow where they can, based on soil type, rainfall, temperature, altitude, and past geological events like glaciation. And these environmental conditions do not follow state boundaries.

Rather than listing plants by state or county, reference points people typically use to find a location, we have decided to use ecoregions. We are not trying to make plant choice more complicated than it is. Just the opposite! Using ecoregions as a guide will simplify plant choice while making these decisions more accurate. https://homegrownnationalpark.org/doug-newsletter/why-ecoregions

Pollinator Garden Design for Large Spaces