native plants – Health4earth

Earth Overshoot

On July 24, we had used all the resources that the Earth can generate in a year. We are using more resources than we can replace, or living on borrowed time.
The day we want to reach is December 31.

How can we use ;ess resources

From the Carbon Almanac. On July 24 we hit Earth Overshoot Day for 2025. Earth Overshoot Day is noted every year and the date is announced on World Environment Day. It marks the day when “humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services … exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year”. Global Footprint Network, a research organization focused on the operation of the human economy within the Earth’s ecological limits, hosts and calculates when Earth Overshoot Day will occur, with this year showing that humanity is using the planet’s resources 80% faster than ecosystems can regenerate. July 24 is the earliest in the year that Earth Overshoot Day has fallen, with past dates going back to 1971. In those 54 years, humanity reached its overshoot day on December 31 once, in 1972.

Calculations for overshoot day are based on the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts, and this year’s calculations revealed that due to the ocean’s reduced capacity to store carbon, an increase in per capita Footprint and a reduced per capita biocapacity, Earth Overshoot Day fell eight days earlier than it did in 2024. In addition to Earth Overshoot Day, Country Overshoot Days are also calculated each year, seen here. These dates represent when the planet’s ecological resource budget would be used up if every place on Earth consumed at the same level as residents in that particular country.

Credit: Global Footprint Network 2025, www.overshootday.org and www.footprintnetwork.org.

A campaign working to reduce the strain on the Earth’s resources and bring humanity’s consumption into better balance is #MoveTheDate. The goal is to move the date of Earth Overshoot Day to December 31 or later every year, ensuring that the resources taken from the planet can be sustainability regenerated by the ecosystems. Solutions range across five major areas: planet, cities, energy, food and population. This solutions map tracks solutions being implemented across the world. Check it out to see if there are any near you.

Visit the Earth Overshoot Day website to learn more about how it is calculated, as well as the economic and ecological implications of humanity’s continued overuse of resources.

My Five things you can do:

Strive for zero waste–Reuse, Reuse, Reuse and Refuse!

Drive Less

Reduce your plastic footprint–No single use plastic!

Plant native plants and raingardens without chemicals!

Don’t waste food.

https://www.ecowatch.com/earth-overshoot-day-2025.html

The World Laughs in Flowers

I hope they are native!

My yard is at peak. Unfortunately, it is also in a drought. Some places are challenged with flooding, but it is dry in my neighborhood. Native plants don’t need chemicals, and they adapt to wet and dry weather extremes

I don’t water, and hope for rain.

Native plants attract the bees’ birds and butterflies. The monarch butterflies and the hummingbirds are thrilled with these native flowers in my yard

Ideas for adding native plants https://wildones.org/

Bee balm (menardia) and purple cone flowers

Above are Culver’s root, milkweed, and lots of menardia. The bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies are thrilled.

The Painted Lady

Each one of us needs to work to create the world we want to live in. I want a world of clean air, and clean water. I want a world of healthy birds, healthy butterflies and healthy people.

The sighting of the first butterfly is always exciting. Have you seen one yet?

Below is a beautiful essay on the Painted Lady butterfly. Like all birds butterflies and bees these butterflies are stressed by climate change, loss of habitat, and harmful chemicals. The theme of the essay is that these are very resilient butterflies that have been able to adapt for their survival. Unlike the Monarch butterfly Painted Ladies don’t need just a few flower species to lay their eggs, they adapt!

I have planted habitat in my yard for Painted Lady caterpillars.

Painted Lady

Painted Lady love pussy toes.

These pearly everlasting plants have eggs from the painted lady.

On this Earth Day, do everything you can to help these beautiful butterflies survive. Plant native plants in your yard, never use chemicals on your plants, avoid single-use plastic, and everyday work for clean air!

Pollinator Week

The rudbeckia is just starting to bloom.

Pollinator Week has been a rainy week where I live in Minnesota. I was going to list all the pollinators coming to my yard, but it’s hard to see much activity when it rains hard every day! The rain doesn’t bother hummingbirds, and they are entertaining us at our hummingbird feeder.

Spiderwort, a native plant beauty!

The purpose of Pollinator Week is to heighten everyone’s awareness of how important pollinators are to us all. Our bees, butterflies and birds are having a hard time with loss of habitat and our overuse of chemicals. We use too many harmful chemicals to kill insects and fertilize our lawns and farm fields.

My message to you this pollinator week is reduce your dependence on harmful chemicals that kill pollinators. This includes butterflies and birds. Since 1970 North America has lost 3 billion birds. We can’t keep killing the insects and caterpillars the birds need to raise their young.

Birds and butterflies add so much to the quality of our lives Bees and other pollinators touch our lives every day in ways we may not realize. Imagine a world without most of the foods you love. Without bees we wouldn’t have the abundance of apples, pumpkins, strawberries, blueberries, or almonds that we enjoy. Pollinators even help milk production: the alfalfa and clover cows graze is replenished by seed pollinated by bees. A world without pollinators would not only leave us with fewer food choices, but would make it substantially harder to find the nutrition we need to survive.

Thoughts on creating a pollinator Garden:

Provide a variety of flower colors and shapes to attract different pollinators.
Whenever possible, choose native plants. Native plants will attract more native pollinators and can serve as larval host plants for some species of pollinators.
If monarch butterflies live within your area, consider planting milkweed so their caterpillars have food.
Plant in clumps, rather than single plants, to better attract pollinators
Choose plants that flower at different times of the year to provide nectar and pollen sources throughout the growing season http://www.fws.gov/pollinators/

“Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 19 are linked with cancer or carcinogenicity, 13 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 26 with liver or kidney damage, 15 with neurotoxicity and 11 with disruption of the endocrine (hormonal) system. Of these same pesticides, 17 are detected in ground water, 23 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources, 24 are toxic to fish and other organisms vital to our ecosystem, 11 are toxic to bees, and 16 are toxic to birds.”

https://www.startribune.com/these-minnesotans-are-getting-rid-of-their-lawns-but-why/600375090/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=best_of

https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/protecting-monarch-butterflies-pesticides

All reactions:

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Wildflower Week

Every day is a wildflower day for me. I plant for the birds, butterflies, and bees and love when they are in my garden. The spring has been spectacular where I live. Trees and bushes are blooming, birds are singing in concert, warblers are migrating through, many butterflies are present, and its sunny and 70 degrees.

The hummingbirds have arrived!

Shooting star , wild geranium, and violets

Marsh Marigolds

Hummingbirds love columbine

It is a perfect time to add some native plants to your garden to draw more birds and butterflies into your yard.

National Wildflower Week was started by Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. Find out what wildflowers attract butterflies: http://butterfly-lady.com/plant-native-wildflowers-to…/

Why native plants are important:

They are the ecological basis upon which life depends, including birds and people.
They provide habitats, food, and shelter for specific insects, birds, mammals, and other animals.
They support significantly more wildlife than non-native species.
They conserve water, protect soil from erosion, and create habitat for various animals.
They offer reduced water use, less maintenance, natural pest control, and environmental sustainability.

Plant Native Wildflowers to Attract Butterflies!

A Plastic Lawn?

SYNTHETIC TURF

Real plants for real habitats

I disagree with a bill in the Minnesota Legislature about synthetic turf (HF 3705/SF 3869).

Synthetic turf has been framed as a sustainable solution for dealing with the climate crisis, drought and drainage issues. Unfortunately, many want to believe in this easy but expensive solution and believe without evidence that it is a sustainable practice. This is greenwashing and a false solution for helping our climate crisis. Synthetic turf is made of plastic. It has all the terrible side effects of plastic pollution. It breaks down in the sun and breaks down with use. It leaches toxic chemicals into our water and breaks down into microfibers. Synthetic turf is not healthy for children, pets, wildlife or adults to recreate on. It is not a sensible solution for a green lawn.

If plastic were a country, it would be the fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. We shouldn’t be encouraging the use of more plastic. We should be reducing our plastic use, not increasing it.

Synthetic turf is terrible at managing stormwater runoff. Even if it is permeable, the water will run right under it and cause erosion as it finds a muddy path to the nearest waterway. Deep rooted plants are the master of absorbing runoff and holding the soil. They are a proven solution.

The state of Minnesota is putting lots of money into bee lawns. Let’s pivot to them in times of drought. Bee lawns help pollinators, improve water quality and work for the healthy communities the public wants. Bee lawns are real, not fake. They are a low-maintenance and sustainable solution, and bee lawns can be adjusted and planted for everyone’s needs.

Becky Wardell Gaertner, Minneapolis

I like violets in a bee lawn, they are hearty, can be mowed and bees like them.

Pollinators and Climate

Happy Juneteenth**and Happy Pollinator Week! Both important in making the world a better place to live.

This mix of native plants attracts bees, butterflies, and singing birds.

Bee balm is one of the best plants for pollinators.

Pearly everlasting is a host plant for the painted lady butterfly. Picture of her catterpillar.

An unsung hero of the pollinator world.

June 19 to June 25, is pollinator week highlighting the importance of pollinators to our world and our survival. Drought, floods, storms, chemicals and loss of habitat are hard on our pollinators, and there are things we can do to ensure their survival.

Pollinators bring me joy and I can’t imagine a world without butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds and beautiful singing birds. Take time this week to think about what you can do to help the pollinators of our world. Maybe decide to stop putting chemicals on your yard, plant some native plants, or take out some grass lawn for more garden.

This Pollinator Week is emphasizing the connections between climate and pollinators. Pollinators are dying because their food and homes are disappearing, diseases have increased, and rising temperatures and natural disasters are affecting their ability to survive – all of which are related to climate change. At the same time, the conservation of pollinators and their habitats can help combat climate change by supporting healthy ecosystems, air, soil, water, and plants. Combined, these results make planet earth a safer place for us to live. These are big problems and the efforts that are made around North America and globally during Pollinator Week can help provide real solutions for the pollinators we all love. https://pollinator.org/pollinator-week

National Pollinator Week

https://journeynorth.org/pollintorpatches/featured/06142023-2023-national-pollinator-week

4 steps to help bring back pollinators: https://www.xerces.org/bring-back-the-pollinators

World Bee Day

https://www.audubon.org/native-plants

**Juneteenth is the “longest-running African-American holiday,” and it recognizes June 19, 1865, as the date that news of slavery’s end reached slaves in Texas and other states in the southwest—formalizing their emancipation after the end of the Civil War a month earlier. It also came two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

A Lot to Celebrate!

World Bee Day

Plant Flowers Loved by Bees and Butterflies

Bees like yellow, but they also love purple.

Bees are facing many stressors because of climate change, loss of habitat, too many chemicals and disease.

On World Bee Day plant some seeds bees love like bee balm(menardia) Culver’s Root, hyssop, Joe Pye weed, or asters. Also, consider a bee lawn https://beelab.umn.edu/bee-lawn

World Bee Day

Celebrating Bees

https://www.earth.com/news/world-bee-day-highlights-urgent-need-to-protect-pollinators/

Outdoor May

There’s just something about being outside that seems to lift your mood and bring on the happy. Happy May!!

I hope you can spend lots of hours outside this May. Clean air is crucial to being outside! What can you do to ensure our air is clean?

Native plants bring birds butterflies and bees into your yard. They also need no chemicals, and create cleaner air!

Hooray for May. It has been a long snowy winter where I live. This May get outside to experience the beauty of nature. Time outside demands fresh air. It’s a big frustration for me when I go outside, and someone is using a smelly lawn mower/leaf blower, or the airplanes overhead are spewing bad air Why people need to idle their engines as they read their phones is a mystery to me? Please turn your engine off. **This May spend time outside and work for clean air! There’s just something about being outside that seems to lift your mood and bring on the happy.

I have just been out walking along a river near my house. It was so quiet, the baby leaves are just popping on the trees. Manny rich colors, and wow, beautiful wildflowers appearing! I saw my first bull snake. Pay attention and nature will award you!

Things to do this May:

-Read this article about being outside: Fifteen benefits of being outside: https://blog.biotrust.com/benefits-of-exercising-outside/

-Work for clean air. Never idle your car engine, don’t use your power lawn mower or leaf blower, and please avoid outdoor fires. All these polluting activities contribute to our climate crisis. Every action matters!

-Two or more days a week leave your car in the garage.

-Take a breath, clean air! Thank you.

-Clean air is an environmental justice issue. Read about it here. Never support the burning of garbage or chemical recycling.***

-Plant a few native plants to bring bees butterflies and birds and clean air into your yard. https://health4earth.com/2022/08/26/wow-an-attractive-healthy-lawn/

-Participate in No Mow May https://www.ecowatch.com/no-mow-may-uk.html No Mow May is under way! #NoMowMay encourages people to resist the call of the lawn mower and leave lawns untouched until the end of May for the benefit of: pollinators, biodiversity and clean air!

-Enjoy a peaceful bike ride away from traffic!

**Idling your car wastes fuel, money, and causes air pollution and health problems. It is better to turn off the ignition if waiting more than 10 seconds, as restarting the car does not use more gas than idling.

***What is chemical recycling? The process primarily involves converting plastic into fuel that is then incinerated. Far from actual recycling, it’s really just an expensive and roundabout way of burning fossil fuels. The chemicals industry is lobbying hard to get two types of these plastic-to-fuel incinerators — pyrolysis and gasification — exempt from regulations under the Clean Air Act.

The Actions For Happiness groups has a calendar of activities to help make May meaningful and kinder!

https://www.lung.org/blog/environmental-justice-air-pollution

Wow, An Attractive Healthy Lawn

“Every person on earth bears responsibility for good earth stewardship” Pope Francis

Northern Pearly Eye

How did we ever get sold on the fact that a green monoculture of a turf lawn was a good thing everyone wanted to copy? I love walking in green spaces, but should a green space have more variety than being just like everyone else trying to be like everyone else. Has our climate crisis brough us to a time we question the feasibility of maintaining something that harms instead of adding a positive to our environment?

What is my problem with a turf grass lawn?

First it takes lots of water to keep it green and needs poisonous chemicals. We have been in a drought, and homeowners are watering the sidewalk and the street trying to keep their lawns green. A weed free lawn requires lots of chemicals which run down the street into the storm drains and then into our lakes and streams where they stimulate the growth of algae. See the evidence on ponds and lakes covered with algae muck which can be fatal to dogs and wildlife. Muck covered lakes is not a natural happening!

A monoculture turf grass lawn has no benefit to pollinators. Pollinators love flowers free of chemicals and plants that are native to the area. They also like color and fragrance. The best is native plants have deep roots and can survive without much water.

Deep rooted native plants

You can create a friendly yard by just not mowing it, but I recommend thinking about a happy bee lawn. Bee lawns composed of various low growing plants don’t require chemicals and are not toxic to humans and pets. Also children can run and play on them just like turf grass. The butterflies and bees love diversity, scent and color. Some of my favorites are native violets and barren wild strawberries, both are very easy to grow and can be mowed a few times a summer. See the link below on bee lawns. Some people like non-native clover and creeping Charlie.

Violets are great for bee lawns.

Start with a small section of your yard, mow it short and work in some seeds (violets, strawberry, clover, creeping thyme, heal all) with a rake or hoe, and keep moist until you get some new sprouts. Find seeds at https://www.prairiemoon.com/

https://www.startribune.com/why-you-should-leave-your-garden-messy-in-the-fall/600207408/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=best_of

Nature’s Best Hope: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=doug+tallamy+videos&view=detail&mid=AB8B87BD969B5366B02BAB8B87BD969B5366B02B&FORM=VIRE by Doug Tallamy

How to save the planet starting with your yard: https://slate.com/podcasts/how-to/2022/08/how-to-save-the-planet-with-native-plants?fbclid=IwAR37nC8uiu9P6EoaXAF1Edm16g3zjKTCdx8zm1vH1JaZQdw0G9kQBqUgvK0

Plant Flowers Loved by Bees and Butterflies

Mowing lawns as the climate warms (startribune.com)

Endangered migrants come in all shapes and species (startribune.com)

https://www.pennlive.com/life/2022/08/bee-lawns-a-lazy-mower-way-to-help-pollinators.html

Everyday appreciating our beautiful earth, and working for healthy communities through less chemicals, less waste, And more fun!