Filtering by tag: native plants ✕

Customers lining up at the Growing Wild Nursery booth.

Photos from Extension’s Pollinator Workshop & Native Plant Sale

On September 19, 2025 the Chatham County Center of North Carolina Cooperative Extension conducted a workshop on Landscaping for Pollinators and Other Wildlife at the Chatham County Agriculture &…

Green lynx female on spurred butterfly pea vine (Centrosema virginianum).

Late Summer 2025 Snapshots From Extension’s Pollinator Paradise Garden

Cooperative Extension's Pollinator Paradise Demonstration Garden was created in late 2008 at Chatham Mills in Pittsboro to provide forage from early spring to late fall for pollinators such as native…

Leafcutter bee foraging on dwarf wild indigo in the spring.

Spring Chores in the Pollinator Garden

Around late February things start kicking into high gear in Cooperative Extension’s Pollinator Paradise Demonstration Garden. Usually I have taken most of January off in the garden. I start back with…

Monarch butterfly perched on a green leaf beside yellow wildflowers against a blue sky

Monarch Butterfly Proposed for Listing Under the US Endangered Species Act

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced on December 10 that they are proposing to list the monarch butterfly as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.Scientists estimate that…

Wildflower garden with clusters of red and yellow blooms and tall pale-green flower spikes

Celebrating 15 Years in Pollinator Paradise!

This year (2023) marks the 15 year anniversary of North Carolina Cooperative Extension's Pollinator Paradise Demonstration Garden at Chatham Mills in Pittsboro! I created the garden in 2008 with…

Three people in a grassy field talking, sheep grazing in the background

NC AgVentures Chatham County Farm Tour

NC AgVentures is a NC State Extension program that provides grants to North Carolina farmers and community groups for new and innovative agricultural project ideas that will increase farm profits.…

Passionflower bee collecting pollen on yellow passionflower. 

Critter Spotlight: Passionflower Bee

For 15 years I have enjoyed observing the many pollinators that forage on the native passionflowers in my Pollinator Paradise Demonstration Garden. North Carolina is home to two native passionflower…

Bee clinging to a small pale green flower, orange pollen visible on its hind leg

Pollinator Plant Spotlight: Late Figwort

Even though I have been managing my Pollinator Paradise Garden for 15 years, it continues to teach me every year. The garden features over 225 unique species of plants (85% of them native to North…

Camouflaged looper on lemon bee balm.

Critter Spotlight: Camouflaged Looper

Recently while working in my Pollinator Paradise Demonstration Garden I was observing all the bee activity on the lemon beebalm (Monarda citriodora) when I noticed a slight movement out of the corner…

Dried wildflower seed heads with white fluff against a blurred pink background

Fall Chores in the Pollinator Garden: Leave the Leaves and Save the Stems!

After planting, weeding, and watering through the spring and summer, some gardeners look forward to fall as a period of rest as plants senesce at the end of the season. Other gardeners are eager to…